Editorial: Antibiotics in Focus

The question of the use of antibiotics and their residues in meat and food products has been the focus of debate in the European Parliament this week and was also a dominant theme at the EuroTier exhibition in Hanover last week.

At the weekend, the industry examined the role of antibiotics in food production on European Antibiotic Awareness day.

At EuroTier, Dr Hans-Joachim Götz, President of the Federal Association of Practising Veterinarians (Bundesverband Praktizierender Tierärzte e.V. - bpt) said that the law over antibiotic use "needs to make sense".

The German veterinary organisation said that there needs to be monitoring and benchmarking of future antibiotic use in order to reduce the volume used in food animals, as well as the separation of drug sales from prescription and administration.

But Professor Manfred Kietzmann of the veterinary institute on Hanover reiterated the assertion that as long as retailers and consumers apply such pressure to keep food prices low, farmers and their veterinarians have little choice but to take the cheapest option in their decision-making on all aspects of production - including the use of antibiotics - consistent with the law.

China has announced that it is to launch new standards to improve animal wlefare.

The General Principles of Animal Welfare Assessment provide compulsory standards largely targeted at the treatment of livestock.

Launched by the Ministry of Agriculture and drafted by a panel of veterinarians, scholars, as well as meat and dairy industry experts, the regulation is attempting to introduce animal welfare into industry standards.

In 2010, legal experts drafted a version on China's Animal Welfare Law that is intended to criminalise maltreatment of animals.

In a major shift this week, Europe's leading meat processor VION Foods is to set a new course by selling off its UK assets and concentrating on its businesses in the Netherland and Germany and its food ingredients business.

The company had already announced the closure of one of its pork processing plants at Halls of Broxburn in Scotland and now the rest of the UK assets are up for sale - largely including the former business of Grampian Country Foods.

On the global markets, a change in the European Union's quota system is now offering new opportunities to meat producers in Australia.

A new quarterly application for quotas will allow exporters more flexibility and see less likelihood of quotas not being met and lost.