Sask Pork encourages producers to reach out to their herd veterinarian to participate in new antimicrobial benchmarking project

By Lynn Redl-Huntington

Sask Pork is encouraging hog producers to reach out to their herd veterinarian to get involved in the “Antimicrobial Benchmarking on Saskatchewan Hog Farms” project, a first-of-its-kind initiative in Saskatchewan which recently received $150,000 in funding from the Agriculture Development Fund.

The goal of the project is to build a representative sample of 100 premises from across the province,

including farrow to finish, farrow to wean, nursery, and grow-finish operations. The project will examine the types and quantities of antimicrobials purchased by the farm (prescriptions, receipts, farm records, etc.) from 2018/2019 to 2022. The information will be compared to producers in Ontario, Alberta, and Manitoba where similar projects have either been completed or are currently underway.

By monitoring current and future antibiotic usage, producers and their veterinarians will have the tools to assess and benchmark their usage with others in the industry while also creating a provincial baseline.

In recent years, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) associated with antimicrobial usage (AMU) in food producing animals has been a constant topic of discussion and has emerged as a public health concern. The industry has been approached in the past to participate in studies on AMU directed by human health researchers, with dubious methodology and motives, so it was important that producers and veterinarians design and participate in a credible data collection and analysis process.

“We needed to built a project in which participants would have confidence that the data is not simply being collected to criticize farms and veterinarians for over-use or over-prescribing and build in a feedback process to evaluate what excessive use looks like and how to manage it if it is indeed happening,” explained Ravneet Kaur, Manager of Producer Services at Sask Pork.

“There is a real and tangible benefit for producers to participate. Not using antimicrobial drugs optimally is expensive, so participating producers will save in drug costs over time,” added Kaur, who is responsible for provincial delivery of the Canadian pork industry’s national production and on-farm food safety programs. “On a much larger scale, showing prudent and judicious antibiotic use will be instrumental in countering the current public perception of indiscriminate AMU in food animals. It will also provide pork producers with a competitive edge in national and international markets.”

Even though programs such as the Canadian Integrated Program for Antimicrobial Resistance (CIPARS) tracks AMU through farm surveillance nationally and the Public Health Agency of Canada collects data from drug manufacturers and distributors, there is no clear picture of farm-level antibiotic use in Saskatchewan.

“It is not possible to determine where improvements need to be made, nor evaluate when improvements have been made if we do not have information on where we are starting from,” said Kaur, who also works directly with pork producers to help them fulfill their program requirements and offers guidance and in-house training on production methods for swine health, biosecurity, animal transport and care.

The results from this project will be shared with producers and other stakeholders at producer meetings and the Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium held annually in November.