Many European farmers still give their animals too many antibiotics

In the 1940s a group of American farmers discovered that antibiotics not only prevented illness in their livestock but also helped the animals grow faster and fatter. That discovery led to routine use of antibiotics, something that boosted agriculture around the world. But for farmers in the European Union, the days of heavy dosing are over. The bloc banned the use of antimicrobials to promote growth in 2006. On January 28th it enacted even stricter rules. These drugs can no longer be given preventatively to herds en masse, nor used to compensate for poor animal welfare, such as overcrowding.

Antimicrobials destroy microbes but overuse, in animals or humans, creates evolutionary pressure: as a result of exposure to the drugs, bugs evolve to resist their effects. This can lead to the emergence of “superbugs”, infections that are hard—sometimes impossible— to treat. It is difficult to quantify exactly how much overuse in livestock contributes to drug-resistance in human infections. But drug-resistant bugs that develop in animals can spread to humans—often through food. In recent years a growing number of people have become ill with drug-resistant strains of salmonella, which scientists have traced back to poultry. Different strains of bacteria can also share drug-resistant genes: an E. coli strain adapted to animals might pass on resistance to another E. coli strain that thrives in humans.

Drug-resistant infections are on the rise and were directly responsible for nearly 1.3m deaths in 2019, according to a recent study by the Lancet, a medical journal. These risks have made the EU’s new rules popular with health lobbyists. But some countries are far closer to implementing the law than others, according to a report from the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), published on January 28th. On average Swedish farmers use 11mg of antimicrobials per livestock unit (a measure based on the number of animals and their average weight). Their counterparts in Spain use 154mg. Cypriot farmers use a whopping 394mg.

Cóilín Nunan, author of the EPHA report, says progress is slow and patchy. Although the rules look good on paper, “they're probably not going to be properly implemented,” he adds. Higher levels of drug use generally mean that farmers are giving antimicrobials to large groups of their animals prophylactically, often to compensate for inadequate care and hygiene, which cause disease. In Nordic countries, which have exacting welfare rules and low antimicrobial use, only around 10% of drugs are administered in this way; most are given to sick animals. In Cyprus, Poland, where welfare standards are lower and drug use higher, that figure rises to more than 90%.

If member countries flout the law it could weaken the EU’s hand if eventually it tries to impose similar controls on meat imports from outside the bloc. America has much laxer regulations. Some parts of Asia have almost none. Although Britain, a big exporter to the EU, has cut routine use of antimicrobials in farming in recent years, this has mostly been voluntary and has shown early signs of a reversal. The EU is leading the fight against drug-resistant infections, but it needs to get its ducks—as well as its cattle, chickens and sheep—in a row. ■

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