Red Tractor issues guidance on eMB-Pigs requirement

Red Tractor Assurance has published advice on the new pork scheme requirement to record antibiotic data coming in later this year. 

Red Tractor confirmed last week that scheme members will be required to use the electronic medicine book (eMB-Pigs) to record antibiotics usage from this autumn.

The guidance document, which can be viewed in full here, confirms that, by November 1 2017, to ensure compliance with the Red Tractor Scheme producers must have uploaded your total antibiotic usage onto the e-MB for the following quarters:

Quarter 2: April 1 – June 30, 2017

Quarter 3: July 1 – September 30, 2017

From then onwards, as a Red Tractor pig producer you must demonstrate at assessment that you upload collated antibiotic data on an ongoing quarterly basis, and in a timely fashion onto the e-MB.

Your most recent data usage must be no more than four months old at any one time.

NPA chief executive Zoe Davies said making eMB-Pigs a requirement of Red Tractor was a 'very important step forward for the pig industry'.

She said: "Collection and collation of on-farm antibiotic usage data is a key commitment of the NPA’s Antibiotic Stewardship programme."