The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Natural Environment has launched a new protocol to calculate the health risk level of livestock farms in the Balearic Islands based on antibiotic consumption.
With this initiative, which allows for systematic supervision and review of the use of these medications, the regional government complies with European and state regulations on animal health, as reported by the department in a press release.
Following the analysis of available information and coordination between the technical services involved, the Directorate General of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development has specified the procedure that will be applied on the islands. In general, most farms will be classified in the medium risk category.
In contrast, farms with an assigned farm veterinarian registered in Presvet or an ADS veterinarian will be classified as low risk, as they are considered to have continuous professional advice. Beekeeping and aquaculture farms are also included in this group.
The Ministry will review antibiotic consumption data recorded in Presvet every quarter to identify farms that may present a higher health risk.
According to the latest available records, corresponding to the fourth quarter of 2025, there are 13 farms in the archipelago cataloged with a high or very high risk level due to their antibiotic consumption: four of high risk and nine of very high risk.
The Ministry has specified that most of these farms are equine, while the rest are distributed among cattle, pig, and poultry farms.
The Director General of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development, Fernando Fernández, has emphasized that the fact that a farm registers high antibiotic consumption in a quarter "does not indicate that it is being misused."
"It may simply be due to the fact that the livestock has suffered a specific health problem that required treatment, without this being a cause for alarm. The problem arises when, repeatedly and constantly, the same farm appears in high-risk levels," he explained.
The Ministry has insisted that antibiotic resistance is one of the major current threats to public health worldwide. The inadequate or excessive use of these drugs favors the appearance of resistant bacteria and complicates the treatment of diseases in both animals and people.
For this reason, the European Union has been promoting policies for years to encourage prudent and responsible use of antimicrobials under the 'One Health' approach, which jointly integrates human, animal, and environmental health.
Within this framework, with the approval of the Strategic CAP Plan 2023-2027, Spain assumed the commitment to reinforce the control of antibiotic use in livestock farming. That commitment was materialized in a royal decree that created the Presvet system, a state tool for monitoring antibiotic consumption on livestock farms.
Later, the entry into force of the royal decree regulating the sanitary surveillance obligations of livestock farm owners led the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to ask the autonomous communities to set their own criteria for determining the sanitary risk level of farms.
According to data from the fourth quarter of 2025, all farms in the Balearic Islands required to be integrated into Presvet are registered and, in general terms, comply with the obligations to submit consumption information.
The General Directorate has been monitoring this tool since 2023, which allows for national and regional consumption references to be available for each livestock species and each family of antibiotics. Furthermore, farmers can know their consumption level quarterly and compare it with the average for their sector.
The Director General has highlighted that the livestock sector of the Islands has responded "very positively" to the implementation of Presvet.
"Today we can affirm that the system works correctly and provides reliable information for adequate monitoring of antibiotic use," he added.
Fernández also recalled that antibiotic resistance is a public health challenge that affects the entire population and whose prevention requires responsible use of these medicines in both human and veterinary medicine.
The Ministry will individually communicate this circumstance to the farms classified with a high or very high risk level and will continue to produce educational materials to facilitate compliance with the health surveillance obligations provided for in the regulations.