Dairy, beef and sheep farmers are being encouraged to record their on-farm antibiotic use via Medicine Hub, either through their vet or individually. Hannah Park reports.
Medicine Hub, developed by AHDB, is a new industry-supported initiative launched to gather data from cattle and sheep enterprises in the UK with the aim of tackling antimicrobial resistance while providing a platform for producers to compare usage.
Dr Mandy Nevel, AHDB head of animal health and welfare, says Medicine Hub provides the first major opportunity for the UKs ruminant sectors to be able to build a national picture of antibiotic use on-farms.
Dr Nevel says: We believe the UK is the fifth lowest user of antibiotics in food-producing animals in Europe, but we now need to evidence of that for each sector - a service which Medicine Hub will be able to deliver.
The need for this evidence is becoming more important than ever, with national usage figures increasingly being demanded in national and international trade discussions, while usage figures will also help to reassure consumers that we are low users, helping to highlight the UKs high health and welfare standards.
Farms can either record data onto the hub through their vet, which would be done via practice records, if permission is given, or register on the hub and upload information individually in instances where antibiotic use is being recorded by farm management software, by a milk buyer or for other schemes.
A body collecting farm data, such a milk buyer or assurance scheme, is also able to share farm data on a farmers behalf, with permission.
The launch of the Medicine Hub follows the introduction of the electronic medicine book in the pig sector where data from some 94% of slaughtered pigs is now collated.
In the field: Rushywood Farm, Somerset
The team at Rushywood Farm at Haselbury Plucknett, Somerset, are constantly striving to improve animal health and performance.
Dairy manager Diana Guitane, explains data recording has a central role in the decision making on the 1,600-cow farm, underpinning all aspects of proactive health management and treatment protocols.
Monitoring and data capture takes place across multiple different areas on the farm and Ms Guitane works closely with farm vet, Pete OMalley, to interpret and analyse this data, informing protocol updates and staff training.
She says: Health monitoring and data analysis guides investment on-farm, but also monitors the return on those investments. Building a designated stress free calving maternity shed, alongside investments in technology, like automatic feed pushers, has helped reduce the incidence of transition disease, with retained foetal membrane rates currently at 1.6% and left displaced abomasum rates at 0.3%.
Mr OMalley describes how this data driven decision making at Rushywood includes medicine usage.
He says: Using Synergy Farm Healths antimicrobial usage report, the farm has been analysing medicine usage for a number of years, benchmarking performance against themselves over time and against anonymised data from the wider Synergy client base.
Not only do these reports help guide strategies to strengthen responsible antimicrobial use, but they provide a source of motivation for the team.
We are really pleased to have seen a 37% mg/PCU reduction in our overall antimicrobial use in the last two years, achieved through a fairly simple ethos of as little as possible, but as much as required.
For example, since 2017 not a single cow on the farm has received antibiotics at drying off, with dry period mastitis control achieved through good drying off technique and hygiene around the dry cow yard.
While our internal client benchmarking reports are useful, Medicine Hub successfully scales this up to national level.
Anonymised medicine data submitted through a trusted industry tool, like Medicine Hub, provides the final piece of the puzzle - anonymous benchmarking against national performance.
It also provides a platform for UK farms to demonstrate the fantastic progress being made in responsible antimicrobial use at a national level. We know we are responsible medicine users and Medicine Hub helps prove this to the rest of the world.
