Extract from Westminster Hall debate on Antimicrobial Resistance: Farm Animals - Jan 18

Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab):...In 2022 World Animal Protection also conducted research into the presence of antimicrobial resistant enterococci in fresh pork samples sold in UK supermarkets  Now, that is a scary thought: AMR readily available on the shelves. The study looked at the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance depending on pork production method, including UK minimum legal standard farming, higher-welfare indoor farming and high-welfare outdoor organic farming. When the bacteria were found, they were then tested for susceptibility to different antibiotics—in other words, whether antibiotics were effective in killing them or slowing their growth. The result of the study indicated a potential trend: a higher AMR burden with more intensive production methods, and a lower AMR burden with higher-welfare production methods. That demonstrates a worrying link between the overuse of antibiotics on low-welfare factory farms, the food that we are consuming and the AMR to which we are exposed....

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