US pig producers against antibiotic ban

It is already the fourth time that such a plan is being
discussed. However, the change that the plan is being adopted this time is
bigger than ever before, because the Democrates (who have the majority in the
Congress) are more pro biological farming than their opposites; the
Republicans.
Although being adopted by Senator Edward Kennedy among others,
the bill only wants to phase out 7 antibiotics, all very close to antibiotics
that are being used in human medicine.

Keep records
70% of the
antibiotics used in poultry, pigs and beef cattle is used as growth promoter
instead of medicine according to data from the Union of Concerned Scientist. The
writers of the bill therefore want to reduce the unnecessary use of these large
amounts of antibiotics. David Wallinga from the Institute for Agriculture and
Trade Policy in Minneapolis also points out another point in the bill. When the
bill will be implemented, the antibiotic use in US livestock farming needs to be
recorded. This has never been done before and could be the reason why farmers
are not so positive about this bill.

NPPC is
against
Although
doctors seem to like the idea, the National Pork Producers
Council (NPPC) is strongly against the new bill. The measures are too extreme
and limit the management practices of the pig farmers, according to David
Warner, spokes person of the NPPC. According to Warner, in feed antibiotics
are not used on a large scale by pig producers. “The antibiotics are expensive
and therefore the farmers try to reduce the use of these medicines”, says
Warner. “If pigs are healthy, the pig farmer would not spend thousands of dollars
on antibiotics”, he adds. He agrees that antibiotics are used as a preventive
measure, “but that is only for a short period and on a very low scale”, Warner
commented. He also addressed that the amount of antibiotics that is used
to cure sick animals is more than the use of preventive antibiotics in the feed. After the
antibiotic ban in Denmark, the curative use of antibiotics increased from 57,300
kilo to 112,650 kilo.

Related link:
NPPC

Related news
item:
US antibiotics phased out in two years time

To
subscribe to the free AllAboutFeed newsletter click here.