How Contexts and Desired Impacts Shape Interventions towards Improved Antimicrobial Use in Animal Production

Abstract

SummaryThe objective of this study was to analyse and compare the interventions (sets of actions) towards improved antimicrobial use (AMU) in animal production. These were designed in Living Labs (LLs) organised in five countries of the ROADMAP project, with ex ante impact assessment (EAIA) to guide the process. LL participants designed very different types of interventions which targeted systematically farmers and veterinarians but less frequently other stakeholders, despite the ROADMAP ambition to involve the whole value chain in AMU transition scenarios. A variety of factors influenced which interventions were designed, such as the country's AMU levels, existence of AMU monitoring systems, the possibility for veterinarians to profit from antimicrobials sales, export‐orientation of the animal production sector and political momentum. Other influential factors included the breadth of desired impacts that the LL participants wished to produce through the interventions they designed (limited to animal health aspects or encompassing other subjects such as animal welfare, consumer information or veterinary business models) and the LL process (choice of participants and facilitators). Overall, the approach succeeded in providing a holistic vision of the possible measures and the obstacles towards improved AMU and produced context‐tailored interventions with high acceptability. However, they had limited results in terms of system rethinking.