Les additifs en nutrition animale. Effets sur l'homme, les animaux et l'environment

Abstract

Animal feed additives have been used for many years. They have played a part in meeting the increasing demand for animal products due to industrialization and urbanization while the useful agricultural areas and the number of agricultural workers were decreasing. The biological and economic advantages of feed additives are well known. They allow the sanitary drawbacks of great overcrowding of animals to be palliated. Those advantages exist in spite of improvements in the quality of the diet and in the environment. They have been diminishing but remain real. They save feed, protein, time and worry for the farmer. However, several objections have been raised against the use of feed additives. They are more theoretical than actual. The problem of residues is discussed. It appears without foundation when the watchfulness of the national and international organizations controlling the use of feed additives is taken into consideration. The problem of transferable drug resistance through the plasmids, especially in Enterobacteria, is more relevant to microbial ecology than to the utilization of antibiotics or even of copper salts. All things considered, the balance is in favour of the use of feed additives.