“Measuring usage is part of stewardship, but usage and stewardship are not equivalent to each other,” Michelle Kromm, DVM, MPH, MAM, DACPV told attendees of the 2024 Delmarva Chicken Association 59th National Meeting on Poultry Health, Processing and Live Production.
Having more than 15 years of experience in food-system risk management and antimicrobial stewardship, Kromm established Food Forward in 2022 to further focus on food-system resiliency.
She challenged the poultry industry to expand the metrics used to measure antimicrobial stewardship and think more broadly when having conversations about stewardship.
“Generally, when companies report their antimicrobial use and the number is lower, we celebrate that,” she noted. “But is that decrease really a good thing? We don’t have any additional information, so we don’t know how the bird was taken care of or the impact on welfare.”
Put it into context
So, how should the poultry sector measure and talk about antimicrobial stewardship?
“Recognizing that we’re never going to get away from talking about antimicrobial use,” Kromm said, “I suggest that stewardship is what most people in production do every single day: taking care of our animals to avoid using antimicrobials in the first place.”
Poultry veterinarians, producers and managers spend most of their time on animal management and care, which is central to preventing disease. “With antimicrobial use, we’re addressing when things go awry. We only focus on the cure and not all the effort that goes into prevention,” she noted.
“We don’t talk about the massive amount of energy and investment that goes into disease prevention. We need to elevate the discussion to round out the story of our stewardship.”
The conversation should include steps that occur every day within the flock. Place more emphasis on access to veterinary care, biosecurity steps, vaccination programs and flock health plans, Kromm said. Antibiotic alternatives — probiotics, prebiotics, essential oils — and other strategies that help support birds’ growth and health need to be included in the broader discussion.
“Think about actions that are already measured on a relatively regular basis, such as housing investments or a veterinarian-to-chicken ratio,” she said. “These things reflect the care birds receive regularly and could be captured and reframed as practices contributing to antimicrobial stewardship.”
Diagnostics are part of preventative medicine programs, and serve as an interface between disease prevention and treatment. Describing the diagnostic processes can increase a company’s production transparency, something that consumers and the food chain increasingly expect. By utilizing tools, such as serosurveillance to check vaccine program efficacy, veterinarians can proactively identify and address shifts in disease pressures before antibiotic intervention is needed.
Diagnostics also flag when an antimicrobial intervention may be appropriate from an animal health and welfare standpoint. “Using culture and sensitivity testing to determine the antimicrobial needed ensures we get the right bug/drug match the first time,” she noted. “This is a space in which animal agriculture could be a leader.”
The poultry sector’s research investment is one more area that goes underappreciated. “Rigorous research is an important aspect of demonstrating that you are being good stewards and are constantly looking for ways to improve health and welfare outside of using antimicrobials,” she said.
Understand consumer impressions
It’s universally understood within agriculture that today’s consumers are far removed from food production. But that does not mean they lack opinions or impressions regarding the process.
Consumers carry the assumption that animals within a no-antibiotics-ever (NAE) or raised-without-antibiotics (RWA) program have better welfare. Kromm pointed to a 2018 survey conducted by Randall Singer, DVM, PhD, University of Minnesota, and founder of Mindwalk Consulting Group, showing 64% of consumer respondents said they purchased RWA meat or poultry because it promotes animal welfare.
Meanwhile, producers and veterinarians surveyed who were involved with RWA and NAE programs said the decision was based on marketing opportunities. Surveyed producers and veterinarians who were not participating in NAE/RWA programs cited animal health and welfare concerns for that decision. In fact, most respondents felt that NAE/RWA significantly worsened animal health and welfare.
“This consumer gap is problematic; they have no idea, and it’s our job as the animal caregivers to fill that gap with the appropriate information,” Kromm said. “That’s where broader metrics could be used to help fill in this assumption gap.”
Equally important is to build the understanding that not 100% of the birds placed in a NAE program reach a package with the NAE label on it. That’s another part of the production transparency equation.
“When a veterinarian determines a treatment to be medically necessary, it needs to happen regardless of what package label the birds were intended for at placement,” she noted. “We want consumers to know that animals get sick. It helps normalize the fact that antimicrobials are an important part of caring for animals.
“Label claims can create an ever-growing gap between what we know reality is and what consumers think reality is.”
Flip the script
Instead of leaving preventative-medicine details under the surface, Kromm challenged the poultry sector to flip the script and talk about antimicrobial stewardship in a way that’s proportional to its animal health and welfare investments.
“We need to integrate preventative-medicine terms and metrics into our stewardship programs, which will expand the understanding of our production story,” Kromm said. “The tools and the language already exist. This approach would also facilitate the preventative health conversation and the benefit of advancing an ‘One Health’ strategy across sectors.”
She challenged meeting attendees that the status quo is not working. “We need to accept that telling the rest of the story is critical to being able to continue to use the tools, including antibiotics, that help maintain animal welfare.
“Gaps are filled with assumptions. If we’re not filling the gaps in our production story, consumers will do it,” she concluded. “It’s on us to fill the gap with the correct information.”
