Emotive Themes from Tennessee Cattle Producers Regarding Responsible Antibiotic Use

Abstract

To improve judicious antimicrobial use (AMU) in food animals in the United States, all feed additives that were medically important antimicrobials were moved from over the counter to Veterinary Feed Directive in 2017. This action required a change in behavior of producers’ AMU practices. Because emotions are important aspects of behavior, several behavioral interventions have targeted people’s emotions as means of effecting change. Hence, understanding and incorporating the emotional experiences of producers towards current AMU practices can be a starting point to making future behavioral changes that could reduce the emergence of antimicrobial resistance challenge. Between June 2017 and March 2018, seven focus group meetings of Tennessee (TN) beef and dairy cattle producers were conducted to evaluate producers’ emotional views regarding responsible AMU in TN cattle. Sixty-two TN cattle producers participated and emotively expressed the following: (1) deep connections to animals in ways that improve animal and public health; (2) pride in their quality of products; (3) distress that consumers misconceive their AMU practices as indiscriminate; and (4) recommended that producers be more transparent about their AMU practices and the public improve their awareness for detecting marketers’ deceptive product labels that take advantage of public ignorance. Knowledge of these producers’ emotions would help educators target more successful behavioral change campaigns, improving stewardship in AMU practices among producers.