PLF and antibiotic free pig farming

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Published on Friday, 21 February 2014 00:00

Syntesa participate in the third focus group meeting on antibiotic free pig farming.

ALL-SMART-PIGS, european research project coordinated by Syntesa, was invited to join this meeting where DG AGRI of the European Commission brought experts in animal health to its third focus group meeting on antibiotic free pig farming.

The purpose of the focus group is to allow European experts to brainstorm on pig health and the use of antibiotics, with a view to generate idea how to eliminate antibiotics from pig farming altogether. Experts included Derek Amstrong from BPEX, Prof hc Dieter Schillinger – who also serves on the advisory board of our sister project EU-PLF – and the head of the Spanish pig producer's organisation (Miguel Ángel Higuera Pascual, ANPROGAPOR) amongst others.
ALL-SMART-PIGS present Smart Pig Farming as a way to reduce antibiotic usage in pig farming. Heiner Lehr presented how ALL-SMART-PIGS uses short and long term health indicators such as feed intake, growth monitoring and cough counting to detect health issues as soon as possible, locate them in the compartment and allow thus the selective early treatment of animals. Treating animals as early and as selectively as possible decrease the amount of antibiotics required, to the benefit of the animal, the farmer and the consumer.