The use of antibiotics in dairy farming: Main challenges and alternative approaches

Abstract

The dairy chain is remarkably important in mammals' nutrition, highlighting the humanfood through the production of milk and its derivatives. Thus, antibiotics have become essential for life and health maintenance of animals, being widely used for treatment of bacterial infectious diseases. However, antimicrobial resistance resulted from uncontrolled usage of antibiotics for prophylactic purposes and animal growth promoter. The challenge of antimicrobial resistance and persistence of antibiotic residues in milk still occurs, which presents a potential risk to human and animal health. Therefore, it is crucial to develop alternative strategies to overcome the inappropriate use of antibiotics, especially for dairy farming. Thus, this chapter intends to raise awareness and clarify issues related to the use of antibiotics in dairy cattle, the major problems of antimicrobial resistance, residues in milk, and to report about the main alternative solutions to the use of conventional antibiotics in dairy production with scientific studies.