Poultry giant Venky’s marketing antibiotics for growth promotion in farms

Venky’s in India is marketing antibiotics for poultry growth, contributing to the rise and spread of drug-resistant infections.

Venky’s, a major poultry producer in India, is marketing antibiotics to be used by farmers in ways that contribute to the spread of drug-resistant infections, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) can reveal.

The company is selling products aimed at speeding up poultry growth that contain drugs vital for human health. Other critically important antibiotics are being sold for “preventative use”, a controversial practice that involves healthy birds as young as a day old being dosed with drugs to reduce the likelihood of disease.

At least two poultry farms in southern Telangana were found to be using the drugs — one for preventative purposes as recommended by Venky’s on its website, TBIJ found.

The use of antibiotics for growth promotion is banned in the European Union and the U.S., and preventative use is banned in the EU apart from in exceptional cases. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has opposed antibiotic use for both growth promotion and preventative use because they can reduce the effectiveness of the drugs when treating infections in humans.

In 2018, TBIJ revealed Venky’s was selling colistin as a growth promoter. Colistin is a “last resort” antibiotic owing to its importance in treating severe human infections. The revelations prompted criticism and led the Indian government to ban such use of the drug.

At the time, Venky’s told TBIJ that on their own farms and those of their contractors, “antibiotics are used only for therapeutic purpose”. But it appears Venky’s is now selling different drugs to be used both preventively and for growth promotion.

The company did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the latest investigation.