The challenges of implementing antibiotic stewardship in diverse poultry value chains in Kenya

This paper investigates the challenges of implementing antibiotic stewardship – reducing and optimizing the use of antibiotics – in agricultural settings of Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) as a strategic part of addressing the global problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). It does so through analysis of the rapidly transforming yet diverse Kenyan poultry sector, characterized by growing commercial operations alongside traditional smallholder farming. Our research involves interviews with farmers, processors, policymakers, and agro-veterinary stores in these settings. We blend Chandler’s (2019, p. 8) notion of “antibiotics as infrastructure” with value chain frameworks to understand how the structural role of antibiotics in agriculture plays out through contrasting value chains, with different implications for stewardship. Weak regulation and intense market-based pressures are shown to drive widespread antibiotic use in poultry value chains involving small- and medium-sized farms supplying open markets. Antibiotic stewardship through adherence to agricultural and food safety standards is more evident, though unevenly observed, in value chains involving large commercial farms and processors supplying corporate buyers. Our findings reveal the complex structural roles of antibiotics in maintaining producer livelihoods in an intensely competitive and heterogeneous Kenyan poultry sector. This highlights challenges with applying global AMR policy to transforming food systems in LMICs without appropriate translation. We argue that attempts to reduce and optimize the use of antibiotics in agriculture must be informed by nuanced understandings of the roles of antibiotics in food systems in specific places including where very different scales and models of farming and value chain co-exist.

Kenya, antibiotic stewardship, antimicrobial resistance, poultry, value chains, Poultry, Antimicrobial resistance, Antibiotic stewardship, Value chains

10.1007/s10460-023-10518-3

Hughes, Alex

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Roe, Emma

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Wambiya, Elvis

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Brown, James A.

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Munthali, Alistair

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Ziraba, Abdhalah

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Hughes, Alex

e8f203ab-22a2-4032-8f4a-ec8ac2197335

Roe, Emma

f7579e4e-3721-4046-a2d4-d6395f61c675

Wambiya, Elvis

3881f0fa-be80-47f4-be7d-bde65f082912

Brown, James A.

a334b442-2fe5-4e9a-b5d2-0a9d41c38bdc

Munthali, Alistair

6a87ad73-6593-4704-9b4f-351be1a09059

Ziraba, Abdhalah

8ed6e2b3-775a-45b2-9291-c6c510feb0b5

Hughes, Alex, Roe, Emma, Wambiya, Elvis, Brown, James A., Munthali, Alistair and Ziraba, Abdhalah (2023) The challenges of implementing antibiotic stewardship in diverse poultry value chains in Kenya. Agriculture and Human Values. (doi:10.1007/s10460-023-10518-3).

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Accepted/In Press date: 10 October 2023

e-pub ahead of print date: 26 October 2023

Additional Information: Funding Information: The paper’s analysis of antibiotic use and responses to the AMR challenge in poultry value chains in Kenya is underpinned by interview-based research conducted in and around Nairobi between March and July 2021. The project was funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and Global Challenges Research Fund. It was designed to explore antibiotic use and disease management on poultry (specifically chicken) farms and to make recommendations to modify these practices in light of the AMR challenge and the Kenyan National Action Plan. In line with the scale and scope of the research funding, we focused on the knowledges and practices of actors in the poultry food system rather than setting out to conduct a comprehensive survey of patterns of antibiotic use, awareness of AMR, and epidemiological analysis of AMR transmission. This is therefore a paper providing qualitative analysis of the challenges associated with implementing antibiotic stewardship policy in particular commercial settings. We thus targeted a range of actors across the spectrum of poultry value chains and in AMR policymaking. Funding Information: The authors acknowledge funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council Global Challenges Research Fund (Award Number: AH/T004207/1). We are also grateful to Newcastle University for supporting the project during the Covid-19 pandemic. We thank all those interviewed as part of the field research, Caroline Wangari Njoroge for support with field materials, and Dadirai Mkombe for support with related research on the same project in Malawi. We appreciated feedback from a multi-stakeholder, including academic, audience at the project’s online inception workshop in November 2020. We are very grateful to the Editor and three anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback on an earlier version of this paper. Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s).

Keywords: Kenya, antibiotic stewardship, antimicrobial resistance, poultry, value chains, Poultry, Antimicrobial resistance, Antibiotic stewardship, Value chains