Replacement of anthelmintics, antibiotics, and syn-thetic vitamins in organic animal husbandry – the contribution of the Horizon 2020 project RELACS

Summary

Organic farmers adhere to high standards in producing quality food while protecting the envi-ronment and ensuring animal health and welfare. However, organic farming needs to improve continuously to keep meeting its ambitious objectives. The project ‘Replacement of Conten-tious Inputs in Organic Farming Systems’ (RELACS)fosters the development and adoption of tools and techniques to further reduce the use of external inputs on organic farms. RELACS takes far-advanced solutions forward. With regard to animal husbandry, this is brought about by (i) developing integrated endoparasite control strategies for ruminants by exploiting bioactive forages (heather) and the biocontrol agent Duddingtonia flagrans.(ii) reducing dependency on antibiotic use in dairy cows by transferring Animal Health and Welfare Planning protocols and by refining the use of essential oils.(iii) exploring the potential for reduction or replacement of synthetic/GMO produced vitamins by validating requirement definitions and by developing GMO-free vitamin B production.This paper gives an overview of the overall work plan related to livestock and presents se-lected results obtained during the first 18-month period of RELACS. Outcomes of the REL-ACS-survey on the use of antibiotics and anthelmintics are presented by Chylinski et al. in these proceedings