An increasing number of retailers, processors and assurance schemes either recommend or require their dairy farmer suppliers to share antibiotic usage data with Medicine Hub.
Red Tractor is introducing a recommendation that farmer members share their antibiotic usage data with Medicine Hub, or its equivalents. This will be implemented from early 2024. Soon it will be the case that the majority of the UK dairy sector is populating this national database. This means that the UK ruminant sector as a whole can prove its low and responsible use of antibiotics.
Why?
The Veterinary Medicines Directorate has been collecting sales data relating to veterinary medicines for some time. This has shown the UK to be in the top tier in Europe in the responsible use of antibiotics. However, as all EU member nations must now collect farm level antibiotic use data, the UK could soon fall behind.
Anecdotally, we believe that the ruminant sectors are not high users of antibiotics, but we need more accurate data to defend this position.
Evidence that the sector is using antibiotics responsibly is key to consumer confidence and to trade, both nationally and internationally. The more farmers take part, the better the data will be, so set up an account now, or ask your vet to do so on your behalf.
At farm level, having more data means farmers can review their data with their own vet, so targeting veterinary spend in a proactive way and protecting the health and welfare of their animals, with all the financial, yield and productivity benefits that will bring. Once there is sufficient data on the Hub, benchmarking can be activated on a national basis.
Data is always owned by the farmer, so specific farm details cannot be shared, and Medicine Hub will only report aggregate and/or anonymised data for wider industry benefit. Nobody (including Red Tractor) will have access to farm identified data, unless the farmer specifically gives permissions to other third parties, typically their vets or in some instances their milk buyer, to view their individual enterprise data.
How?
The majority of data so far, have got on to Medicine Hub via vet practice software as the primary source of veterinary sales information. Involving the farm vet is often the best route to put data on the Hub. The data will always belong to and be under the control of the farmer. All you need to do is grant full access permissions to your (vet) practice and they can access the account in the same way that you can. Some farmers opt to upload the data themselves and there are guides on how to do this on the Medicine Hub website. In time, more providers of herd management software will connect with the Hub making data entry even more efficient.
Go to www.medicinehub.org.uk to find out more. There is also support available at medicinehub@ahdb.org.uk or telephone: 02477 719 414.