European Countries have Reduced Antimicrobial Use (AMU) in Livestock but Have They Also Replaced and Rethought AMU? A Qualitative Approach Les pays européens ont réduit l'utilisation des antimicrobiens (AMU) dans l’élevage, mais ont-ils également remplacé et repensé cet usage ? Une approche qualitative Europäische Länder haben den Einsatz antimikrobieller Mittel (AMU) in der Nutztierhaltung reduziert, aber haben sie AMU auch ersetzt und überdacht? Ein qualitativer Ansatz

Abstract

As part of the transition to more sustainable agriculture, it has been observed that changes leading to low-to-moderate sustainability, including optimisation and substitution of production processes, are often preferred to more radical changes leading to deep sustainability, i.e. redesigning production processes. In this light, we sought to explore whether this was also the case for antimicrobial use in farm animal production, which has changed over the past decade in an effort to decrease the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance in humans and animals. To explore this, a qualitative approach was used to 1) identify interventions in 12 animal production sectors across 9 European countries, 2) characterise them, and 3) estimate their potential to contribute to the ‘reduce’, ‘replace’ and ‘rethink’ approaches by stimulating the adoption of behaviours related to these strategies. Our findings revealed that while some interventions were identified to potentially contribute solely to one or two of the approaches, the majority were deemed capable of contributing to all three. However, for these interventions, our data suggest that their actual impact, as implemented, was confined to the ‘reduce’ and ‘replace’ approaches, an observation for which we put forward several hypotheses. In addition, policy implications are drawn.