Small-Scale Food Animal Production and Antimicrobial Resistance: Mountain, Molehill, or Something in-between?

Conclusion Antimicrobial resistance is a major global health threat that is linked to antimicrobial use in both clinical and community settings (Finley et al. 2013). The attributable fraction of AMR due to antimicrobial use within agricultural systems is unknown, and within that, how much is due to small-scale food animal production is even less clear. Small-scale food animal production is an important livelihood that has the potential to improve the economy of households and communities (Gates 2016). Given their importance and the potential growth of this livelihood, there is a critical need to better understand the fraction of AMR in humans that is due to antimicrobial use in food animal production, specifically across the range of systems—from backyard to larger-scale operations. On one hand, antimicrobial use in large-scale operations is quantitatively large and exposures to AMR, due to food distribution systems, are likely to be global (Thornton 2010). On the other hand, antimicrobial use in small-scale systems generally occurs within the household environment in LMIC settings; these settings often result in intimate human–animal exposures as well as poor water, sanitation, and hygiene conditions, both of which may enhance AMR spread (Wuijts et al. 2017). Understanding the impact of small-scale food animals on AMR transmission will require better characterizations of the quantity and classes of antimicrobials used in different scales of production systems and the pre...
Source: EHP Research - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: Brief Communication Source Type: research