Any thoughts on the effectiveness of reducing antimicrobial use in factory farming? Say, GFI gave this some attention recently (GFI blog post, and a corresponding commentary piece on Nature Foods), and made the argument that similar problems can (and should) be solved in the cultivated meat industry
I worked on the topic of AMR and animal agriculture for a few years at an ESG org, and my impression is that animal agriculture plays a fairly small role in human AMR, maybe 1-10%. The evidence is pretty unclear, but when I pinned down experts their best guess was that it was a low factor, both based on the understanding of how AMR spreads from animals to humans, and also empirically (variance in human AMR based on variance in how many antibotics are given to farmed animals in that area).
My sense is tha a lot of animal advocacy organisations play up the role of factory farming in causing AMR to try and get other stakeholders to care. The argument goes that animals can be in much worse conditions if they are given antibiotics routinely, and so if we ban antibiotics the animals need more space and other better conditions. Unfortunately, I think this is both disingenuous (although I think many of the people promoting the topic don’t realise this), and I’ve heard from some animal advocates that when the routine use of antibiotics are banned in one region, conditions didn’t get better, mortality rates just went up.
I would appreciate if anyone with expertise on this topic would weigh in as I expect some of this to be wrong.
Great question. It is true that a lot of antibiotics that are used globally are used in factory farming. What is less clear, however, is how much this contributes to AMR (i.e. just because 70% of antibiotics are used for animals does not mean that 70% of AMR or AMR-attributable mortality is a result of use in animal agriculture). Because the science is unclear on exactly how much factory farming contributes (although it undoubtedly plays some role), this is a tricky question to answer
However, regardless, in expectation and even with conservative estimates of the above, advocacy to limit the use of antibiotics as a growth stimulation or prophylactically in factory farming is a promising thing to do.
There have been successful corporate campaigns and certification standards in this space (e.g. here and here amongst many other examples). From my conversations with folk in the space, there would be a role and scope for new actors in this area.
The EU has banned antibiotics for growth-promotion and the effects on human health were too small to measure. Some of it may be compliance-issues (e.g., farmers claiming their herds are sick as a justification to give antibiotics), but it is unlikely to explain all of the effect.
With 70% of medically-important antibiotics used for animal agriculture, conventional meat is a major contributor to the risk of antimicrobial resistance.
This sounds really like a major element, which sounds like it could prove to be more promising than interventions on humans.
Any thoughts on the effectiveness of reducing antimicrobial use in factory farming? Say, GFI gave this some attention recently (GFI blog post, and a corresponding commentary piece on Nature Foods), and made the argument that similar problems can (and should) be solved in the cultivated meat industry
.
I worked on the topic of AMR and animal agriculture for a few years at an ESG org, and my impression is that animal agriculture plays a fairly small role in human AMR, maybe 1-10%. The evidence is pretty unclear, but when I pinned down experts their best guess was that it was a low factor, both based on the understanding of how AMR spreads from animals to humans, and also empirically (variance in human AMR based on variance in how many antibotics are given to farmed animals in that area).
My sense is tha a lot of animal advocacy organisations play up the role of factory farming in causing AMR to try and get other stakeholders to care. The argument goes that animals can be in much worse conditions if they are given antibiotics routinely, and so if we ban antibiotics the animals need more space and other better conditions. Unfortunately, I think this is both disingenuous (although I think many of the people promoting the topic don’t realise this), and I’ve heard from some animal advocates that when the routine use of antibiotics are banned in one region, conditions didn’t get better, mortality rates just went up.
I would appreciate if anyone with expertise on this topic would weigh in as I expect some of this to be wrong.
Great question. It is true that a lot of antibiotics that are used globally are used in factory farming. What is less clear, however, is how much this contributes to AMR (i.e. just because 70% of antibiotics are used for animals does not mean that 70% of AMR or AMR-attributable mortality is a result of use in animal agriculture). Because the science is unclear on exactly how much factory farming contributes (although it undoubtedly plays some role), this is a tricky question to answer
However, regardless, in expectation and even with conservative estimates of the above, advocacy to limit the use of antibiotics as a growth stimulation or prophylactically in factory farming is a promising thing to do.
There have been successful corporate campaigns and certification standards in this space (e.g. here and here amongst many other examples). From my conversations with folk in the space, there would be a role and scope for new actors in this area.
The EU has banned antibiotics for growth-promotion and the effects on human health were too small to measure. Some of it may be compliance-issues (e.g., farmers claiming their herds are sick as a justification to give antibiotics), but it is unlikely to explain all of the effect.
I’d be interested by an answer too !
The GFI link says :
This sounds really like a major element, which sounds like it could prove to be more promising than interventions on humans.