Veterinary medicines legislation requires that antibiotics can only be dispensed on foot of a prescription issued by a veterinary practitioner. Therefore, in Ireland, antibiotics can only be obtained by a farmer on prescription from a veterinary practitioner. European Regulation 2019/6 comes into effect from January 2022 and will repeal existing national veterinary medicines legislation. In the context of significant One Health concerns arising from antimicrobial resistance, the Regulation has a particular focus on driving more prudent and sustainable use of antimicrobials through enhanced controls.
In relation to the cost of a course of antibiotics on a typical pig farm, this is a commercial matter and this information is not collated by DAFM. However, it is clear that antibiotics can represent a significant cost for pig production. An outbreak of disease on a pig farm is also well recognised as resulting in reduced growth rates. To counteract this, many farmers are working to implement preventative herd health measures such as strategic use of vaccination, improved biosecurity and housing to reduce their level of antibiotic use.
Some of the main reasons why antibiotics are used on pig farms are to treat clinically sick animals which may be suffering from bacterial infections such as respiratory disease which can be highly contagious. In these circumstances, in-contact at-risk animals in the same air space may be treated with antibiotics also on foot of veterinary advice to prevent the spread of disease and thereby protect animal health and welfare.
My Department is not in possession of data that would allow a comparison to be made between different enterprise types, however, free range and organic pig farms only account for a very small proportion of pigs in Ireland.
The health and welfare of each individual pig herd is the responsibility of that pig farmer working with their veterinary practitioners and advisors to ensure the health and welfare of animals under their care. My Department is also working with Animal Health Ireland on a programme, PigHealthcheck, to progress a number of initiatives to improve the overall health and welfare of the Irish pig herds. These initiatives are currently focused on the control of salmonella, improving biosecurity and rearing pigs with intact tails.
The overall aim of PigHealthcheck is to improve the profitability and sustainability of the Irish pig industry through improved animal health. A code of good practice regarding the responsible use of antimicrobials on pig farms has been developed collaboratively by veterinary and farming stakeholders on the iNAP Animal Health Implementation Committee and a copy of these guidelines has been distributed to every commercial Irish pig herd in recent weeks.
The national AMU database for pigs (AMUPig) has only been in place since November 2019 and the data received so far represents 43% coverage of the pig population based on 2019 slaughter figures. Currently, submission of data to AMUPig is voluntary but will be mandated by legislation following the introduction of the new veterinary medicine regulations. It will be a requirement of the revised Bord Bia quality assurance standard for pigs due to come on stream in the coming months that all commercial pig herds submit data on antibiotics used to my Department.
