For several decades, producers of poultry, swine and beef have used subtherapeutic doses of antibiotics and hormones as growth stimulants in the feed of their farmed animals.  This practice produced benefits that included:

• Increased disease resistance
• Increased feed conversion
• Accelerated growth
• Improved yield
• Increased live birth rate and survival

These benefits represented significant economic gains for the agricultural industry.The international scientific community has raised great concern about the serious consequences related to the use of antibiotics in this manner.  There is strong evidence that the regular use of antibiotics in the human food chain has resulted in the emergence of mutant forms of bacteria that are progressively more resistant to existing antibiotics.In 2006, the USDA Food Safety Research Information Office issued the following statement: "The emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AR) among food-borne and commensal bacteria associated with food animal production has become an important global issue." Despite growing concerns, information regarding the development, prevalence, spread and persistence of AR in food-borne and commensal bacteria is limited, and AR's impact on human health is poorly understood.

Some facets of antimicrobial resistance (AR) cut across all the components of preharvest food safety. AR is considered separately because of its extreme visibility and importance to food safety, human illness and the livestock industry. Both the CDC and the FDA believe that the use of antibiotics in animal production, in particular antibiotics used in feed, and for growth promotion, is a major cause of antibiotic resistance in humans with resulting longer duration of illness and/or untreatable illness with more severe sequelae. The result is that it is more and more difficult for antibiotics for animals to receive approval from the FDA, with the result that the livestock industry is being deprived of valuable tools they have previously relied upon to maintain healthy animals and flocks, and provide consumers with safe and affordable animal food products."

In response to growing concern, the European Union and Japan have implemented a complete ban on subtherapeutic use of most antibiotics, although these drugs are still widely used by prescription. Though the United States continues to utilize subtherapeutic antibiotics in animal production,  recent bills that have been introduced in the U.S. Congress, that would ban the use of "growth promotion" antibiotics. 

Congresswoman Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY), the original sponsor of H.R. 962 introduced it in Congress in February 2007. She states, "Today, seven classes of antibiotics certified by the FDA as 'highly' or 'critically' important in human medicine are used in agriculture as animal feed additives for nontherapeutic purposes, including growth promotion. This practice is a considerable contributor to the growing trend of antibiotic resistance and the spread of superbugs, making it harder and more expensive to treat common bacterial infections. Resistant bacterial infections increase health care costs by $4 billion to $5 billion each year. Of the two million Americans who acquire a bacterial infection during their hospital stay every year, 70 percent will have infections resistant to the drugs commonly used to treat them.  H.R. 962 would address this problem by phasing out the nontherapeutic use of these seven classes of antibiotics in food-producing animals, while permitting their continued therapeutic use in sick animals."

University studies published in 2007 provided evidence that antibiotic resistant bacteria are found in higher concentrations in farm workers where antibiotics are used as growth promoters, as well as in water run-off from these farms.  The antibiotic-resistant bacteria, as well as antibiotics themselves, find their way into the water supply, further increasing public health risk. 

The continued use of subtherapeutic antibiotics and hormones in the United States has had a negative impact on trade negotiations, and very little U.S. grown meat qualifies for export to the E.U. or Japan.  As antibiotic-resistant infections become more virulent and lethal, there is increasing international pressure for a complete ban on the use of subtherapeutic antibiotics in the human food chain.

U.S. consumers are becoming aware of the serious consequences of antibiotic use as a growth promoter since antibiotic-resistant infections, such as the deadly superbug Methicillan Resistant Staphyloccus Aureus (MRSA), dubbed "Mersa", have become a significant public health threat. 

A growing number of consumers are demanding meat products from antibiotic-free animals.  The demand for organically produced poultry has risen 300% since 2000.  McDonald's Corporation has responded by announcing that its suppliers would be required to eliminate the use of all subtherapeutic antibiotics in production of food served in McDonald's restaurants.  As a result, several U.S. poultry producers, including Tyson Foods, have also announced their intention to abandon the practice of using subtherapeutic antibiotics as growth promoters. 

The abandonment of this outdated practice is a beneficial marketing and public health decision, but at the same time, it deprives the producers of all the benefits that the use of subtherapeutic antibiotics had previously provided, including resistance to infectious bacteria.  Production without subtherapeutic antibiotics, or a suitable substitute, is management intensive, and less profitable. 

There is now an increasing demand for an effective, affordable, "all-natural" substitute that does not stimulate resistance, yet provides the same benefits afforded by the use of antibiotics.  An effective replacement for subtherapeutic antibiotics and hormones would have to decrease mortality, decrease condemnations, improve feed efficiency, and improve poultry or livestock health, without increasing cost.

THE U.S. POULTRY MARKET

Approximately 85% of U.S. poultry production is concentrated in areas currently experiencing water shortages ranging from "abnormally dry" to "exceptional drought conditions".

Mature broilers consume as much as 1/10 gallon of water per day, and poultry producers' require millions of gallons of clean water, daily. As supplies of fresh water dwindle, poultry producers are threatened with severe economic loss.
In a recently completed trial (page 19), Agrastim® added to broilers' feed decreased the time required to reach 5.25 lbs from 48 to 45 days. (This represents a 7% net decrease in growing time to reach market weight.)

Daily water consumption for broilers is approximately 168 ml per kg of weight. During the last days of a broiler's life as it grows beyond 5 lbs. (2.27kg) to a market weight of 5.25 lbs. (2.38kg), it consumes 380 ml (0.1 gal) of water per day. If a broiler reaches market weight in one less day (44 days instead of 45 days), it is conceivable that it will consume 0.1 gal less water in its lifetime.

A different way of calculating water consumption uses mean daily water consumption of 320 ml (.085 gal) at a mean weight of 1.9kg. This results in a 1,700 gal reduction of water consumption, per day of decreased growing time for 20,000 broilers to reach market weight. A three day reduction of growing time could conceivably result in a reduction in water consumption of over 5,000 gal for 20,000 broilers.

If these projections stand up to field verification, an integrator processing 10,000,000 broilers per day, grown using Agrastim®, could reduce water consumption by as much as 850,000 gallons per day, solely based on reduced growing time.