Scotland Makes On-line Antibiotic Recording Compulsory

August 17, 2016 — 

The Scottish pig sector has made online recording of antibiotics compulsory for members of the Quality Meat Scotland assurance scheme. The move follows a trial on five Scottish commercial pig farms. From July 2016, all QMS-assured pig farms are required to upload their antibiotic-use data to the industry's Electronic Medicine Book quarterly, starting with July to September 2016. But ideally producers should upload their data from January 2016 onwards as this will put the Scottish pig industry in a stronger position relative to the rest of the United Kingdom, says Quality Meat Scotland. [Source: August 10, 2016, NPA News, Digby Scott]

In England, NPA Producer Group will decide at its September meeting whether to request Red Tractor to make Electronic Medicine Book recording compulsory for antibiotics, possibly with a phase-in period. Quality Meat Scotland says the online Electronic Medicine Book provides an easy way to record all antibiotic-use, by country.

"The quarterly submission of data will provide the most accurate medicine-use trend analysis for producers," says Quality Meat Scotland pig specialist Allan Ward. "Following submission to the online portal, recorded data is anonymised and a trend report is sent back to the producer," he explains. "This report will provide valuable benchmarks which will enable producers to assess their usage against pig industry standards and may highlight potential to better target antibiotic use, therefore reducing production costs."

He points out data submitted via the Electronic Medicine Book will help the United Kingdom record antimicrobial-use on farms, which in turn will present a far more accurate picture to the European Union, which is scrutinising use of antibiotics at all levels. "The Electronic Medicine Book will also automatically fulfil the requirements of QMS and Red Tractor assurance schemes, mitigating the need for producers to tally up their total usage annually," points out Allan Ward. Explaining the need for good data, he says, "Currently the pig industry has a limited understanding of its total antibiotic usage. Approximately 75 percent of total antibiotics sold in the United Kingdom for animal use are authorised for use in pig and/or poultry production. Unfortunately we don't know how much of the 75 percent is used in pig production specifically."

A recent NPA website poll covering 46 percent of the England finishing herd showed nearly three-quarters of pig-keepers agree with compulsory e-Medicine Book recording of antibiotic-use. However, there were signs of a large-scale versus smaller-scale divide in the results, probably because the latter have fewer admin resources. Also, there was an element of self-selection in the poll, because pig-keepers who don't use computers or who don't engage via the NPA website, are unlikely to have taken part.