Published 13/05/2015

Avaaz, the world’s largest campaigning community, has started a petition developed in collaboration with us, to ban the overuse of antibiotics in farming.

A post-antibiotic era?

A post-antibiotic era is not an apocalyptic fantasy, but a real possibility for the 21st century. Antibiotic resistance is developing faster than new antibiotics are being developed, and finding new antibiotics is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive.

Just under half of all antibiotics used in the UK are given to farm animals for treating or preventing the diseases caused by intensive farming.

The petition, ‘End Agribusiness' antibiotics addiction’ calls on the EU Ministers of Agriculture:

“We call on you to take urgent steps to end the overuse of antibiotics in farming by ensuring the inclusion of a ban of the routine preventative use of antibiotics in livestock farming in the draft bills under consideration at the Council of Agriculture Ministers. We also call for clear timetabled reduction targets and restrictions on the use of critically important antibiotics in farming.”

The petition has been shared nearly 100 thousand times on social media.

Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics

Emma Rose, Campaigns, Lobbying and Communications Specialist for the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, recently spoke to The Grocer on the announcement of 2 Sisters commitment to phase out the use of human antibiotics in their chickens. She stressed that:

“We need to look at how we can make improvements to the systems so they don’t need to be propped up by extensive antibiotic use.”

We are a founding member of the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics.

Take action

Please sign and share the Avaaz petition to ensure this is an issue that can no longer be ignored.