Antibiotic-Free Farming 01"Antibiotics kill most of the bacteria in animals' guts, creating a risk of antimicrobial resistance; researchers seek alternatives

"Antibiotic-free farming" has become an international trend in the livestock industry, and "green farming" is surging in popularity. Has Taiwan, China kept up? Antibiotics and various veterinary drugs should be avoided whenever possible, but then how do you maintain animal health?

Standing at the forefront of this wave are Yu Pi and Li Tzu-tai, professors in the Department of Animal Science at National Chung Hsing University, who have devoted years of research to using probiotics, enzymes and phytogenics (chemical compounds derived from natural plants) to improve animals' nutrient utilization and immunity, accumulating abundant R&D results. By building a solid health foundation for animals so they grow up strong, the use of antibiotics in animals naturally declines, which further reduces drug pollution in the wider environment, prevents microorganisms from developing antimicrobial resistance, and safeguards food safety by avoiding drug residues.

Yu Pi, a newly retired distinguished professor, is a rare female researcher in the animal husbandry field. "All my students here get treated like men, because that's how I was treated back then." This godmother-level figure is petite and rigorous in her scholarship; it is hard to imagine the scene forty years ago when she resolutely went deep into a cow's rectum with her bare hands to perform examinations.

The cheerful and talkative Li Tzu-tai was once Professor Yu Pi's student. After returning to his alma mater to teach, he continued researching animal nutrition, and in his eyes agricultural waste such as garlic stalks and spent mushroom substrate from mushroom bags have all become high-quality feed additives, building up strong constitutions in poultry and livestock without raising costs too much. Operators generally assume antibiotics are the cheapest, while probiotics or plant essential oils are expensive and their effects are less obvious than antibiotics. But Li Tzu-tai affirms: "Antibiotic-free farming and lowering costs can absolutely go hand in hand!"

Taking antibiotics "to promote growth" breeds antimicrobial resistance risks

When people get sick they take medicine, and animals are the same. That said, the way antibiotics are used in the livestock industry is not entirely for treating disease. Beyond standard treatment, operators may also add low-dose growth-promoting antibiotics to feed while animals are healthy and not showing illness, in order to achieve "growth" and "disease prevention."

"Antibiotic growth promoters" (AGPs) originated in the 1940s, when pharmaceutical companies discovered that poultry and livestock fed feed mixed with antibiotics could rapidly gain weight and also had lower disease rates. The livestock industry seized on this like a treasure. Intensive farming models easily cause animal stress and weakened immunity, but "preventive medication" with antibiotics could improve this. The subsequent rise of industrialized large-scale farming is inseparably linked to this discovery.

The livestock industry's antibiotic use is staggering. It is estimated that in the early twenty-first century, half of the antibiotics produced worldwide were used on animals. In major industrialized farming countries, antibiotic use in animals far exceeds that in humans. In his book "Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues," medical doctor Martin J. Blaser pointed out that 70-80% of antibiotics sold in the United States are used in the livestock industry "to fatten up animals."

The EU bans adding antibiotics to feed; nine items remain permitted in our country

Behind the boom, crisis follows. Long-term administration of low-dose antibiotics in intensive farming environments is precisely the breeding ground that lets microorganisms slowly fine-tune themselves into antimicrobial resistance, even producing what are commonly called "superbugs," and such bacteria carry the risk of spreading from animals to humans. In 2013, a Danish study confirmed that two farmers were infected with the MRSA strain of Staphylococcus aureus (a bacterium resistant to multiple classes of antibiotics) through contact with the animals they raised. In Taiwan, China, MRSA is also the number-one pathogen in hospital-acquired infections.

In 2006 the EU explicitly banned adding antibiotics to feed as growth promoters, and the United States also tightened its regulations. Our country has successively cut back the permitted items, especially antibiotic types shared between humans and animals. Under current regulations, "medicated feed additives" still include nine antimicrobial items (see note). But these antibiotics differ from formal veterinary drugs in that they can be added without a veterinarian's prescription.

Antibiotics kill most of the bacteria in animals' guts, leading to faster weight gain