Until 2012, the use of antibiotics in the veal calf sector was poorly documented. In that year, the publication of specific results in the annual monitoring report on antibiotic sales showed a significant use of antibiotics in that sector.

In 2014, at the request of the national interprofession (INTERBEV Veaux), the Agency carried out a survey to better identify the uses, conditions of use and variability of use between the different families of antibiotics used in the sector.

Subsequently, INTERBEV Veaux mandated the ANMV and the Idele to set up a permanent observatory to measure the quantities of antibiotics used in livestock farming. The implementation of this national scheme was financed in 2016 through the Ecoantibio 1 plan.

The observatory is based on close cooperation between breeders, integrating firms, producer groups and veterinarians, with the support of the Chamber of Agriculture of Brittany. The participation of breeders is voluntary; they commit to complying with the requirements of the initiative, in particular by ensuring a rigorous follow-up of the required registrations and by making available all the technical data of their farm. At the same time, veterinarians submit their annual data on the issuing of certificates for the observatory’s livestock farms.

Since 2016, the Idele has been collecting these data and the ANMV has been analysing them, thus providing accurate and up-to-date monitoring of antibiotic use in veal calf farms. Each year, the results are presented in the form of simple and comparable indicators and reported to each farmer and each veterinarian.