Purpose

The project was initiated following conversations with a number of livestock farmers, mostly engaged in conservation grazing programmes, who were concerned about the environmental impact of some of the wormers and flukicides they planned to use in their animals. There is well-established, published evidence of the adverse effects of some of the frontline products e.g. ivermectin and triclabendazole on dung beetles and associated fauna, but that information is not easy to find on product data sheets or in the public domain. As a result, many of the farmers were making odd and, in some cases, inappropriate, product choices. Others were using the meat and milk withhold periods i.e. the length of time active drug residues can be detected in meat and/or milk samples, as an indication of how long these chemicals might be active in the environment - these are not the same thing!

We don’t want farmers to stop using anthelmintics, nor do we want environmental agencies or lobby groups to advocate banning them; animal health and welfare must still be a paramount consideration. We want farmers to use the right product, at the right time etc. and to use ‘as little as possible but as much as necessary’, but there will be pressure to reduce chemical usage on-farm, and we need to be aware of any adverse environmental impacts, whether through usage and/or disposal.

The SEFARI A&E Specialist Advisory Group was based around the two industry-led Sustainable Control of Parasites in Sheep (SCOPS) and Control of Worms Sustainably (COWS) groups, who are the acknowledged and trusted source of guidance and best practice advice for farmers, vets and advisors, as well as the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD), the competent regulatory authority in the UK. Other key contributors were academics engaged in research on anthelmintics and the environment, representatives of the veterinary pharmaceutical industry who manufacture and sell anthelmintics to farmers, as well as farmers, vets, ecologists, soil scientists, environmentalists and other interested parties (n>30).

Our regular ~6-weekly virtual meetings allowed the group to better understand each others’ perspectives and the current state of knowledge on environmental impacts and the regulatory framework around licensing veterinary medicines in the UK. The main aim of the project though, working closely with SCOPS, COWS and the VMD, was to collate available information on the environmental impacts of the main actives and make that information more readily available and easier to understand, such that farmers, vets and advisors could make informed decisions about if/when to treat and what with, and to promote animal health and welfare and the sustainability of the livestock sector, in its broadest sense.