Source: Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE, 11/30/18


Sanderson Farms said today it will end, by March 1, 2019, the use of antibiotics considered medically important for humans for disease prevention in its live poultry operations.
It's a notable change for a company that was flying the flag of conventional methods that its peers had already abandoned in rapid succession.

Major competitors such as Perdue Farms, Tyson Foods and Pilgrims Pride were many years ahead in their moves to ditching antibiotics important to human health, if not committing further to no-antibiotics-ever programs, but Sanderson has staked its marketing on telling consumers why the judicious use of antibiotics were important in raising chickens. It has launched radio and television ads in a “truth-telling” campaign meant to point out what it called prevalent falsehoods and half-truths on poultry marketing in the midst of their competitors’ conversions. In January, it warned of an antibiotic-free chicken oversupply, and its board recommended against a phase out of “medically important antibiotics for disease prevention” in birds. 
Sanderson said the move is in keeping with its position on the judicious use of antibiotics.

The change announced today follows the completion of an independent study by a scientific advisory board that Sanderson commissioned earlier this year. The board found no misuse of antibiotics at Sanderson Farms or other deficiencies in its program, the company said.
Instead, the advisory board found that Sanderson’s broilers “have better than average health,” and that “current [Sanderson Farms] management practices, including their use of antibiotics, are effective to preserve the health and life of chicks and birds” as compared with the rest of the industry. The advisory board also believes the number of broiler chickens treated with antibiotics for disease at Sanderson Farms in 2017 “is low relative to conventional operations of comparable size.”

Among the advisory board’s other key findings were:
• “Raised without antibiotics” (RWA) and “no antibiotics ever” (NAE) programs in the United States in which chickens are never given any kinds of antibiotics for any reason could create unnecessary risks to animal welfare, an increased demand for feed grains and other natural resources, and significant, additional animal waste. The panel noted that U.S. RWA/NAE programs may be inferior to European practices because they withhold from birds even antibiotics that are not used in humans.
• The panel stated that “it is not possible to estimate with a high level of confidence the true risk to human health posed by antibiotic use practices in poultry production.”
• However, the advisory board concluded that “[a] move by [Sanderson Farms] to a system where non-medically important antibiotics . . . can be used for prevention, and medically important antibiotics can be used for treatment and control of disease, could represent a responsible compromise to better preserve efficacy of antibiotics important for human health, while also avoiding the adverse impacts of a RWA/NAE system on chicken health and welfare.”

“[W]e have determined to discontinue by March 1, 2019, the use of gentamicin and virginiamycin for prevention of disease in our live operations,” Sanderson Farms Chairman and CEO Joe Sanderson Jr. said in a news release. “These are the only two antibiotics considered medically important for humans that we currently use for prevention purposes. Our live production team, including our team of veterinarians, is prepared to ensure this change has as little impact as possible on the health and welfare of our birds and environmental resources.

“As we have stated many times,” he added, “we and our veterinary team are committed to the judicious use of antibiotics in our birds. The change we are announcing today is consistent with this commitment and with our dedication to antibiotic stewardship and animal welfare.”

The scientific advisory board's full report is available at www.sandersonfarms.com under Events & Presentations.

For more stories, go to www.meatingplace.com.