The Company recognizes that improper use of antibiotics in animals have tremendous impacts on the animals, their caretakers, consumers and the environment. It could especially create antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic residues in animal products, all of which have proven to be global challenges. We thus signed a commitment to support the United Nations efforts to combat antimicrobial resistance at the One Health Summit on 21-22 September 2016 in Washington, DC, the United States of America as part of our effort to produce a safe animal protein food chain and to develop a strong health system under the “One Health¹” approach with the following five priorities:

Under this commitment, the Company announced our Global Vision for Antimicrobial Use Stewardship in Food Animals in 2017 which is to bring about holistic good health for humans, animals and the environment. We are determined to produce safe and quality foods that adhere to sustainability principles through the responsible and prudent use of antibiotics in both our own farms and those under the Contract Farming Scheme. Accordingly, the farming practices must be:

Meanwhile, the antibiotics are only employed under close veterinary monitoring for therapeutic uses without compromising on animal welfare principles. Additionally, all medicines that are used by the Company must be permitted by the Food and Drug Administration of the Ministry of Public Health, and the Department of Livestock Development, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives of Thailand.

The Company has clear policies and guidelines on antibiotics uses for therapeutic purposes in the broiler and swine businesses. The antibiotics we use must not be included in the “Highest Priority Critically Important Antimicrobials (HPCIAs)” group which is categorized as human-only antibiotics or shared-class antibiotics, as specified by WHO in their 5^th revision of the Critically Important Antimicrobials for Human Medicine. Furthermore, we have eliminated the use of Colistin in the broiler and swine businesses since 2015 and 2017, respectively.

The Company is also committed to reducing our use of antibiotics by partnering with the Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Mahidol University and the Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Chulalongkorn University to study antimicrobial resistant strains within our swine farms since 2016. A total of three research projects were carried out, as follows:

We also encourage the testing of local herbs as remedies for swine illnesses. Examples include the use of the White Siris leaf, which is highlighted in the traditional knowledge of local communities as treatment for diarrhea in piglets, and the use of probiotics (or good bacteria) to treat diarrhea in swine.

As a result of our commitment to reduce, avoid and eliminate the use of antibiotics, in 2018, our integrated broiler business in Minburi received the international certification for chicken “Raised without Antibiotics” (RWA) from the NSF in the United States of America, throughout the entire of production processes, from the broiler hatchery, the broiler farm, the slaughterhouse to the processing plant.

In our layer business, we apply probiotics and natural extracts to treat injured or sick layers, with absolutely no use of any antibiotics in our layer farms as well as in those under our Contract Farming Scheme.

For the shrimp larvae hatchery and nursery business, there is currently no need for the application of eyestalk ablation on female shrimps to induce reproduction as we have applied biotechnological innovation to allow for more effective spawning – a much better alternative to eyestalk ablation.

Finally, for the shrimp farming business, we use probiotics for health benefits of shrimps and focus on water quality improvement, thus eliminating the needs for antibiotics.

¹One Health is the multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to address health issues, integrating practices on human health, animal health and the health of the environment