One of the key elements for strengthening country capacities for surveillance and monitoring antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and use (AMU) in food and agriculture is to provide a standardized approach to collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and sharing data.  

Therefore, FAO is currently working to develop a global system that will support national efforts to regularly generate and analyze reliable and comparable AMR data in food and agriculture and AMU data in crops. 

What is InFARM? 

Since early 2022, FAO has started to develop a prototype for the International FAO Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring (InFARM) IT platform with the following objectives:  

• To support countries in collecting, analyzing, and using their AMR data from animals and food for AMR surveillance at national level. 

• To facilitate countries to publicly share AMR data from food and agriculture sectors for global surveillance as a public good for international advocacy and action to tackle AMR.  

InFARM will support capacity building for global harmonization of AMR data generated by laboratory-based surveillance and all relevant contextual information on AMR and AMU surveillance programmes and linked activities (e.g. national surveillance plans, reports of the application of FAO assessment tools).  

Additionally, InFARM will include support for sharing data into the global Tripartite Integrated System for Surveillance of AMR and AMU (TISSA).  

Data privacy will be guaranteed by providing users access to separate private and public interfaces with various levels of confidentiality for data sharing. Members enrolled in InFARM will have the possibility to share data in the private interface (only accessible to designated officials in the country) or to make data publicly available for the international community. 

Generating science-based evidence in food and agriculture sectors to tackle AMR 

Some countries may already have comprehensive national AMR surveillance systems that produce and disseminate data regularly. Others may have just begun planning a national AMR surveillance system and generating AMR data through point prevalence surveys or research studies.  

Considering that surveillance systems in food and agriculture are at different stages of development, interested countries can enroll in InFARM even if they are at the initial stages of surveillance implementation and their data collection is limited. 

FAO will be working with an initial set of countries to develop and test the InFARM IT platform prototype during 2022. The selected countries will be involved in activities for pilot testing using their data. Global rollout of InFARM and expansion to additional functionalities are planned upon completing the pilot phase. 

By participating in the InFARM system, countries will contribute to building or strengthening their national AMR surveillance systems in food and agriculture. Their participation will generate quality AMR surveillance data that meet national and international needs to create evidence and support actions to tackle AMR.