Costs and Benefits of Innovations able to Reduce the use of Antimicrobials on Pig and Broiler Farms

Samenvatting

Many pig and broiler farmers struggle to reduce the use of antimicrobials on their farms. The improvement of the level of biosecurity certainly is one of the most effective ways to prevent pathogens entering the farm. Research is focused however also on other strategies, which may reduce the reliance on antimicrobials: increase animals’ resilience, early detection of diseases and targeted use of antimicrobials. These three strategies may exert a long term effect on the necessity tofight animal diseases. Several innovations are being tested that belong to these strategies, but most of these techniques have not yet been applied at farm scale In this paper a first analysis has been carried out to estimate the costs and benefits of innovations to improve resilience, to early detect diseases and to implement a targeted use of antimicrobials. As most of the innovations have been tested in experimental settings, the results of the economic analysis still have be treated with care. It provides however a first assessment of the economic convenience of the innovations and a list of key performance indicators that need to be taken into account in the analysis. For this analysis the partial budgeting approach has been used. Where broilers are concerned the analysis has been centred on on-farm hatching, elevated platforms, use of probiotics, automatic weighing systems and targeted use of non-antimicrobial feed and/or water additives. For pigs the analysis has been focused on innovative enrichment material to improve pig welfare and video-surveillance systems to early detect diseases.