HealthyLivestock is carrying out a research programme to study the contributions of enhanced animal health and welfare on reducing the need to use antimicrobials in pigs and poultry.

Internationally renowned experts and scientists from the European Union and China are working together to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Academia, research institutes, private partners and companies decided to join forces for a better health and welfare of pigs and poultry.

Infectious diseases are the most common diseases in the world. Such diseases can be very serious and life-threatening. Many of those diseases are caused by organisms such as bacteria, whereas the medicines against the bacterial diseases, are called antimicrobials. They are one of the most valuable inventions in the history of human and animal medicine and since their discovery, antimicrobials saved the lives of millions of people and animals. However, every antimicrobial use inevitably promotes the emergence of defence mechanisms by the disease agent. Bacteria will become resistant to the treatment, making the once so valuable antimicrobial worthless.

In livestock production systems animals are often held under sub-optimal conditions. Moreover, efforts to maximize production put further pressure on the animals’ defense system, making the animals more susceptible to infections. Finally, this may result in situations where-in the animals get sick and have to be treated with antimicrobials, with an enhanced risk for the emergence of AMR.

HealthyLivestock has chosen to tackle antimicrobial resistance at its roots, through a multidisciplinary approach that will lead to:

·      A reduction of the risk for animals to get exposed to disease agents; 

·      An early detection of health problems and specific diseases;

·      An increased resilience of the animals towards disease challenges; 

·      And if antimicrobials are needed, a more precise use or alternatives.

To meet the goal, 6 specific objectives are identified:

·      Reduction of the risk of pathogen exposure and spread on modern intensive broiler and pig farms in China and Europe through the development and application of farm-specific tailor-made biosecurity protocols.

·      Increasing resilience of pigs and poultry toward disease challenges, through the use of animal welfare friendly systems and improvement of gut health via probiotics in combination with traditional Chinese medicines.

·      To develop, validate and deploy automated behaviour and live weight analyses systems that enable trait specific monitoring for early detection of both generic health challenges and specific diseases

·      To reduce the use of antimicrobials by developing methods of precision medication for pigs and broilers, or by offering alternatives to conventional medication.

·      To identify, based on deliverables of specific objectives 1-4, the most promising technical and management practices, on the basis of practical feasibility, societal acceptance and economic viability.

·      To translate most promising technology and management practices that are feasible, societally acceptable and economically viable into tools provided to stakeholders (including policy makers) to improve health & welfare and reduce antimicrobial usage in broiler and pig farming.

You can find Healthy Livestock website here https://healthylivestock.net/

We organized 2 scientific meetings attended by thousands of people, which you can find here: 

Healthy Livestock event in Bologna: https://rebrand.ly/HLBolonha

ArMOR Cluster Event in Wageningen: https://rebrand.ly/ArMORClusterevent

Soon, Zoetis will launch herd health management Apps for pigs and poultry, with the knowledge obtained from HealthyLivestock research. Also, the apps will include the technical notes and educational materials produced by FVE with the researchers support. Global GAP will publish soon the Business to Business schemes and FVE will submit to the European and Chinese policymakers, the Policy Advise which contains an Executive Summary with the main conclusions of the project. 

8th Newsletter - https://healthylivestock.net/coming-soon-8th-newsletter-of-the-healthylivestock-project/

HealthyLivestock Technical notes- https://healthylivestock.net/result/healthylivestock-technical-notes/

HealthyLivestcok policy brief- https://healthylivestock.net/result/healthylivestock-policy-brief/

You can check the articles and other deliverables of this project here: https://healthylivestock.net/results/

HealthyLivestock comprises two pillars: an EU pillar and a Chinese pillar.

The EU part is funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the grant agreement number 773436.

The Chinese part is funded by the Ministry of Agriculture of the People’s Republic of China.