A Focus Group Study of Canadian Dairy Farmers' Attitudes and Social Referents on Antimicrobial Use and Antimicrobial Resistance

Abstract

As part of broader actions to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR), health authorities have promoted the reduction of antimicrobial use (AMU) in food animals. Farmers' attitudes and receptivity to reduction of AMU appear to be variable and context specific. Our research objectives were to gain insight into Canadian dairy farmers' attitudes toward AMU, AMR, and AMU-reduction in the dairy industry, and to explore drivers and barriers to change AMU, including the influence of social referents. We conducted seven focus groups with 42 farmers in two provinces of Canada (New Brunswick and Ontario) and used thematic analysis to identify, analyze, and report patterns in the data. Our results indicate that farmers usually rely on their previous experience and judgement of individual cases of disease when making decisions related to AMU. External referents included other farmers, family members, and veterinarians. However, veterinarians were generally only consulted for unusual cases. Participants in this study expressed that maintaining cattle welfare is their responsibility, and that they were not willing to jeopardize animal welfare in order to reduce AMU. In addition, farmers regarded the cost of investment in improved facilities to prevent disease as an important barrier to reduce AMU. Finally, the majority of participants considered themselves to be low users of antimicrobials and perceived a small role of AMU on dairy farms in AMR. In conclusion, farmers from this study showed self-reliance to decide about AMU on their farms and considered animal-related and economic factors in these decisions. There was a general lack of knowledge of how to reduce AMU without investing in facilities, and there is an opportunity to motivate increased involvement of the veterinarian in AMU-related decisions. These results should be considered to design and refine antimicrobial stewardship programs for dairy farms.

Understanding Antibiotic Resistance as a Perceived Threat towards Dairy Cattle through Beliefs and Practices: A Survey-Based Study of Dairy Farmers

“…These results slightly contradict a 2019 study of a geographically similar population (New York dairy farmers), in which surveyed farmers indicated that two out of the top three motivating attributes for using antibiotics prudently were “increased profitability” and “decreased risk of residues”, respectively [ 22 ]. However, our results do support the results of a 2021 focus group study of Canadian dairy farmers, who frequently cited severity of clinical signs in their animals as a factor in whether they should treat with antibiotics or wait, and were more likely to treat empirically than wait if the animal was febrile, for example [ 23 ].…”

“…The two heatmaps in Figure 1 and Figure 2 (for Q19 and Q21, respectively) suggest that dairy farmers’ and managers’ decisions to use or not use antibiotics are primarily based on keeping their cattle healthy, and other factors, such as cost or labor limitations, or limiting their antibiotic use are not as important. This supports the 2021 Canadian dairy farmer study, which found that farmers felt that cattle welfare is their responsibility, and they are not willing to jeopardize that by reducing antibiotic use [ 23 ]. Given that dairy cattle usually represent the entire livelihood of dairy farmers/managers, it is unsurprising that they find keeping their cattle healthy and free of disease very important and feel that utilizing antibiotics to help in this regard is appropriate.…”

Cross-sectional study of antimicrobial use and treatment decision for preweaning Canadian dairy calves

“…We did not ask how often producers actually referred to or followed their treatment protocols. Studies have suggested that calf caretakers may not follow the treatment protocols and may make decisions based on their experience or deviate from the treatment protocols to adjust for specific cases with severe clinical signs (Webb et al, 2019;Cobo-Angel et al, 2021;Okello et al, 2021). It is unclear whether deviations from a written treatment protocol relate to more or less usage of antimicrobials and to outcomes for calf health, which should be studied in the future.…”

Evaluating Farmer Attitudes and Knowledge on Reducing Antimicrobial Use in Dairy and Sheep Farms in New Zealand

“…For some conditions such as cow lameness, mastitis, metritis, endometritis, and scours in calves, the respondents were less likely to seek veterinary medical advice (Fig 1 and 3). A study in Canada found that farmers used previous experiences of similar cases they encountered and the type of AMU as a determinant of the type of antimicrobial they were going to use when a similar case came up [35]. This may suggest either those farmers have a fair experience in dealing with clinical mastitis or that they have had consistent advice from their veterinarians on how to manage the disease impact on their cattle herds.…”