What do antibiotic-free farming and resistance farming mean? Key points to understand
In recent years, China's livestock industry has grown rapidly in quantity. But many of the currently frequent food safety incidents are related to livestock products, putting China's livestock industry in the awkward position of “large but not strong”. Antibiotic-free farming and resistance farming have gradually emerged, so what are antibiotic-free farming and resistance farming? What key points should be understood?
I. What is antibiotic-free farming?
To reduce antibiotic resistance and fundamentally reverse the harm caused by the misuse and abuse of antibiotics in the livestock and poultry industry, the global livestock and poultry industry is advocating “antibiotic-free farming”.
Antibiotic-free farming means not using antibiotics, hormones or other exogenous drugs during the farming process. However, this definition has an absolute and a relative distinction. Absolute antibiotic-free farming means refusing to use any antibiotics at all for disease prevention and control in livestock and poultry during the farming process; relative antibiotic-free farming means allowing the standardized and rational use of some antibiotics for disease prevention and control in livestock and poultry.
II. What is resistance farming?
No matter which country wants to implement antibiotic-free farming, it cannot be achieved in one step; all will go from relative antibiotic-free farming to absolute antibiotic-free farming. This is resistance farming.
Encouragingly, China's farming industry also has some antibiotic alternatives. For example, Chinese herbal extracts (artificially cultivated Cordyceps products contain beneficial components such as cordyceps polysaccharides, cordycepic acid and cordycepin, which can replace or greatly reduce the use and dosage of antibiotics and significantly reduce the mortality rate of livestock and poultry). This is currently the antibiotic alternative that has been researched and promoted for application relatively widely in China.
In addition, relatively mature antibiotic alternatives include microbial preparations (mainly Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, Bacillus, yeast, etc., which can enhance the body's immune function and reduce mortality, but the effect is unstable), enzyme preparations (the metabolism of all organisms takes place under the action of enzymes; enzyme preparations do not directly attack pathogens, and most of their effect is to reduce the growth substrate of pathogens), acidifiers (such as fumaric acid and citric acid, which can stimulate the activity of digestive enzymes, improve the digestibility of feed nutrients, and kill or inhibit microorganisms present in the feed itself and harmful bacteria in the digestive tract), and compounds with special functions (such as potassium diformate, sugar terpenes and oligochitosan, etc.; potassium diformate can promote growth and resist bacteria, and its main components, formic acid and potassium formate, naturally exist in nature and in the intestines of pigs and are completely biodegradable).
III. Key points to understand about antibiotic-free farming and resistance farming
The key points to understand differ among various farming industries. For example, when farming chickens, because a full-course cage-raising model and automatic temperature control management are used, no preventive measures were taken against chicken coccidiosis, and in fact no symptoms of coccidiosis occurred.
Because fully enclosed chicken houses are used for raising, in seasons other than summer, fans are still necessary to draw air at set intervals to reduce stale air, while keeping the cooling pads unobstructed when there is no water in them.
Therefore, it is necessary to gradually explore and continuously improve various effective measures, reduce costs and simplify operating steps. Only through the joint efforts of all parties is it possible to ultimately achieve large-scale antibiotic-free farming.