Factors influencing pig farmers’ perceptions and attitudes towards antimicrobial use and resistance

Lowering Antibiotic Usage and Phasing Out Pharmaceutical Zinc Oxide in Danish Pig Herds: Pig Farmers’ and Veterinarians’ Experiences and Perceptions

“…Furthermore, they point out how antibiotics are not only used as a reaction to disease as intended by the law. Despite political efforts to limit the usage of antibiotics to when it is strictly necessary, several studies support that in practice antibiotics are still used for metaphylactic and prophylactic purposes in pig production (Coyne et al, 2014(Coyne et al, , 2016Hockenhull et al, 2017;Bradford et al, 2022). In our study, a harmful impact on animal welfare as a result of moving from an antibiotic strategy based on "better safe than sorry" to one based on "wait and see" was a point of debate.…”

“…Some participants questioned whether uneven growth with loose stools should be considered a welfare problem, whereas others seemed confident that streamlined growth was a sign of health. As in other studies, antibiotics were often articulated as a means for helping and protecting animals (Coyne et al, 2014;Hockenhull et al, 2017;Golding et al, 2019;Kongsted and Anneberg, 2021;Bradford et al, 2022). Thus, the study highlighted how infectious diseases were considered inevitable everyday events in production.…”

“…However, comparing the situations with skiers breaking their legs and in acute need for treatment, in the daily situation, dealing with sows housed in inappropriate systems, this vet felt they had to react with a prescription of medicine. The feeling of being locked in by conditions and thereby forced to use antibiotics is reflected in other studies on the subject (Coyne et al, 2014(Coyne et al, , 2016Hockenhull et al, 2017;Golding et al, 2019;Albernaz-Goncalves et al, 2021;Bradford et al, 2022) These studies also reported inadequate farm environments and lack of ability to invest in housing system as main difficulties for achieving a lower usage of antibiotics. Also aligning with these experiences, Visschers et al (2015) detailed how farmers were mainly occupied by financial worries.…”

“…In line with this, examples were given on how over the years "old farmer´s knowledge" on non-antibiotic solutions for disease treatment had been forgotten. Other studies have pointed out how farmers feel a lack of concrete alternatives to treatment of disease (Kongsted and Anneberg, 2021;Bradford et al, 2022). In some cases, looking back in time and re-implementing discarded methods may be a way forward.…”

An economic assessment of alternative antimicrobial use scenarios on pig farms

“…There are many economic studies that analyze the decision making on farms due to certain changes in policies or markets ( 41–44 ). Generally, the economic consequences of implementing alternative management strategies on farms are one of the major barriers for farmers to change their farm management strategies ( 45–47 ). There are few studies published that investigate the economics of AMU and AMR in livestock species ( 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 ) and specifically on pig farms ( 39 ).…”