Source: American Association of Swine Veterinarians
USDA’s National Animal Health Monitoring System, in collaboration with the National Agricultural Statistics Service, will conduct a national study May through August the focusing on how antimicrobials are used on swine operations in the United States. The NAHMS Antimicrobial Use on U.S. Swine Operations, 2017 study represents a new data collection and reporting effort for NAHMS, intended to be repeated biennially. In particular, the study will examine antimicrobial use and stewardship practices on swine nursery and grower-finisher facilities with a capacity of at least 1,000 head.

Swine nursery and grower-finisher operations with an inventory of at least 1,000 head in 13 states will be contacted and asked to provide information on antimicrobial use and stewardship practices. No biologic testing will be performed. Those states include Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and South Dakota.

The timeline for the study:
• In May, representatives from NASS will contact swine operations to inquire about their interest in participating in the study. NASS’ role will be to obtain producers’ consent for study participation.
• Beginning July, swine producers who agreed to participate in the study will be contacted by APHIS personnel to schedule an in-person interview, which will be conducted by an APHIS veterinarian.
• Data collection will end in August.

The American Association of Swine Veterinarians, National Pork Board and National Pork Producers Council support USDA in this effort. “The information gathered by the NAHMS study on antibiotic use will help us assure our customers that we use antibiotics responsibly and demonstrate that we are implementing the changes in Guidance 213 and the VFD rule,” according to Liz Wagstrom, NPPC chief veterinarian.

“As an industry, we welcome this latest effort by USDA to get accurate information to the public about how America’s pig farmers actually use antibiotics,” says Jan Archer, National Pork Board president and a pig farmer near Goldsboro, N.C. “We’ve been good stewards of antibiotics over the years by working with our veterinarian partners and by following guidelines, such as those in the Pork Quality Assurance Plus certification program. Also, this survey will provide benchmark data that can help our industry as we continue on our journey of continuous improvement.”

NAHMS is a statistical unit under the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act. All information acquired during this study will be used for statistical purposes only and will be treated as confidential in accordance with CIPSEA guidelines. Only summary estimates based on the inference population will be reported. Data collected under CIPSEA are protected from Freedom of Information requests.

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