UK ruminant antibiotic stewardship roadmap

The ruminant roadmap is a major collaborative initiative bringing together the UK ruminant sector to develop ways of promoting and evidencing responsible antibiotic usage (ABU).

We need people from all parts of the UK ruminant sector to join us in creating this roadmap.

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Over the next year, we aim to develop a roadmap for the sector which will:

1. Identify how to further promote and demonstrate responsible antibiotic stewardship (ABS) at UK ruminant farm-level to drive progress and enhance animal health and welfare.
2. Co-design how best to collate and report sufficient evidence of antibiotic usage (ABU) at UK national level to satisfy both customers and authorities.

Why is this work needed? 

There is much work already happening in the UK ruminant sector to improve ABS, but there are challenges which this initiative aims to address to really push us forward, including: 

• Practical challenges of collecting detailed farm-level ABU data at scale to evidence responsible stewardship
• The need for more collective mobilisation around a shared objective.
• Variation across the ruminant sectors (dairy, beef, calf, sheep) and across the devolved UK nations.

Despite some notable areas of success, stakeholders and authorities have been becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of quantitative evidence at farm level. This is our chance to tackle this head on.

Who is involved?

It is vital that this initiative includes stakeholders from across all ruminant sectors and all areas of the UK. We are aiming to have representation from veterinary, producer, industry, supply chain, retailer and government groups. Each stakeholder organisation will have the opportunity to play an active part and will be responsible for in-kind contributions of personnel, time and resources.

The work will be led by three individuals who will be responsible for the strategic direction as well as running co-production activities throughout:

• Fiona Lovatt (Chair, Sheep Antibiotic Guardian Group and RCVS Knowledge)
• Mark Jelley (Chair, Cattle Antibiotic Guardian Group)
• David Black (incoming BCVA President 2025/26).

How you can get involved:

Sign up to be updated on the progress of the work and to hear about workshops / focus groups when they are scheduled.

Sign up to get involved

Dates for your diary

• BCVA congress 9 - 11 October 2025: If you are attending, please join Fiona Lovatt, Mark Jelley, David Black and Gavin Morris at 10.00am on Thursday morning to hear about the initiative. 
• Medicine Hub ILG 20 October
• NFU livestock board 27 November
• Scottish SONAAR (online meeting) 11 December
• SPVS congress 27 February 2026.

Details of workshops planned for November 2025 and February 2026 will be added here soon.

With thanks for their support 

The Anti-Microbial Resistance in Agrifood Systems Transdisciplinary (AMAST) Network, a UKRI Network, is providing academic expertise for the robust collation of evidence, and funding practical costs associated with the secretariat, workshops, meetings and venues for widespread stakeholder engagement.

Project delivery is coordinated by RCVS Knowledge, who are responsible for the secretariat to arrange meetings, coordinate communications and publish the final report.

RUMA Agriculture is providing expertise and personnel and, together with VMD and AHDB, provide support to the CAGG and SAGG groups. Task-and-finish teams may be established to give more detailed insight into specific areas, as required.