California bill to phase out use of antibiotics in farm animals moves forward

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The California Senate bill to phase out the use of non-therapeutic antibiotics in animals raised for food has passed a major hurdle. The bill, SB 416, passed the California Senate Food and Agriculture Committee by a 3-1 vote.

SB 416 was introduced by Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez(D-Shafter), who also notably introduced a bill to ban the docking of dairy cows’ tails this year. Our colleague Mary MacVean at the Daily Dish blog explains the bill’s implications:

Florez made school meal programs the initial target of the bill, which would forbid schools from serving meat or poultry treated with non-therapeutic antibiotics after Jan. 1, 2012. By 2015, the ban would apply to all animals raised for human consumption in the state.

‘We tell people to take antibiotics only as prescribed for the very reason that they not develop resistance to these drugs they may need when they are truly sick,’ Florez said in a statement. ‘Then we feed those same antibiotics daily to the animals they will consume.’

Several food producers and organizations opposed the bill. Among objections are that the provisions reduces the illness prevention tools that farmers or ranchers have and that banning non-therapeutic drugs could lead to an increased use of therapeutic antibiotics.

SB 415 now goes to the Senate Education Committee for a hearing that’s scheduled to take place Wednesday.

Florez is seen by many as a strong partner of animal welfare advocates in California. Referring to his tail-docking bill, he said the practice did nothing to improve food safety and amounted to ‘nothing more than needless animal cruelty which must be stopped.’

-- Lindsay Barnett