Abstract
By measuring the quantity and ways in which antimicrobials are used, and reviewing different technical and socioeconomic factors influencing antimicrobial use at farm level, this study discusses the main knowledge gaps in antimicrobial use in food animal production and provides recommendations for future research and policy development. The review reveals that antimicrobial use in food animals exhibit strong regional and species differences, and there are still large information gaps concerning the current state of antimicrobial use. Factors associated with animal health (including antimicrobial resistance), animal health improvement, economic costs and benefits relevant to animal diseases, and potential technological alternatives or alternative systems all have an impact on antimicrobial use on the farm. There is a clear need to resolve the data gap by monitoring antimicrobial use and developing an analytical framework to better understand farmer behaviors under different technical, economic and environmental circumstances.
Highlights
Antimicrobial use has become an integrated part of modern intensive animal production systems for preventing and treating microbial pathogens that cause animal diseases
This paper examines, through reviewing the literature, two main issues related to antimicrobial use, (1) how antimicrobials are used, and (2) what factors affect antimicrobial use in animal production
The fixed conversion rates between live weight and deadweight for pig, broiler and cattle were 0.7, 0.75 and 0.55, respectively, and these were used to adjust the figures from Van Boeckel et al.[2]; (3) multi-specie average data are from the European Surveillance of Veterinary Antimicrobial Consumption (ESVAC)[16] report except that for the UK which is from the UK-VARSS report[17]
Summary
Antimicrobial use has become an integrated part of modern intensive animal production systems for preventing and treating microbial pathogens (mostly bacteria) that cause animal diseases. AMR has a limited impact on farm production but potentially has a great impact on consumers and the environment (so called external effect), so a regulatory approach will be essential to effectively reduce the antimicrobial use on farms. This requires an understanding of the quantities of antibiotics used, the ways in which they are used at the farm level and the factors affecting their use[2,7]. The various aspects of antimicrobial use with possible AMR links are described and discussed This is followed by an examination of factors influencing their use, with emphasize on those.
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