Agriculture under the gun to find substitutes to antibiotics
Alternative methods to treat sick animals come at a cost, producer says
With Canada's agriculture industry under growing pressure to reduce its use of antibiotics, researchers are ramping up efforts to find alternative ways of keeping animals healthy on the farm.
Earlier this week, 193 United Nations member states signed a declaration agreeing to fight antibiotic resistance, a growing global health threat scientists say is the result of the overuse and misuse of antibiotic drugs in human health as well as agriculture.
With the move, the UN joins a string of NGOs and governments calling for more stringent control and oversight of antibiotic use, as well as the promotion of innovative alternatives to the use of these drugs.
The implications for agriculture are significant. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, about 80 per cent of all medically important antibiotics sold in Canada go toward livestock use. Some of those antibiotics aren't used to treat sick animals but are instead used to dose an entire herd's food or water to prevent disease in the first place.
Colleen Biggs, who along with her husband Dylan operates TK Ranch northeast of Hanna, sells grass-fed beef raised without this type of preventive antibiotic use (the Biggs will give antibiotics to an animal if it's sick).
However, Biggs says she knows why other producers may choose to mass-dose their herds.
“I understand why livestock producers do that because I understand how difficult it is to make a living in agriculture,” she said. “They're trying to keep animals from getting sick because the profit margin is very slim and they need to do whatever they can to cut costs.”
Biggs said she and her husband have found other ways to keep cattle from getting sick, including optimizing herd handling and management techniques to minimize stress on the animals. But it's not easy, and she said consumers need to realize antibiotic-free production comes at a premium.
“Every time a consumer goes to a grocery store and buys a meat product, they're voting with their dollars,” she said.
Since widespread dosing is exactly the kind of repeat exposure that scientists believe can lead bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics (thereby creating “superbugs,” in- fections that no longer respond to treatment), scientists are racing to find other ways to help farmers keep their animals healthy.
“We don't have a choice anymore. This is very, very urgent. If I had magical abilities, I would find something tomorrow,” said Agriculture and Agri-Food research scientist Moussa Diarra, who is conducting trials looking at the effects of cranberry extract on the immune systems of broiler chicks.
Diarra's early results show a 50 per cent reduction in mortality for chicks fed an extract of cranberry compound in their first days of life — an indication that cranberry may have disease prevention properties that could be used on the farm in place of preventive antibiotics.
“We believe we have something that could be developed and would help if one day we have to say, 'noone can use antibiotics anymore,' "Diarra said. “It is significant.”
Developing an agricultural antibiotic alternative is not easy. Not only must the product work, but it has to be easy to work with and suitable for use as a feed additive. It also needs to be affordable.
Cameron Groome, CEO of Ottawa-based Avivagen, which has developed an antibiotic alternative it says boosts an animal's immune system using naturally derived oxidized beta-carotene, believes science will find a way to wean the agricultural industry off its reliance on antibiotics.
“We're looking at all different classes of alternatives to antibiotics, and those could include probiotics, different prebiotics, sugars that change the microbiome, toxin binders that reduce inflammation — there's a whole other tool kit that's emerging for the producer that doesn't want to rely on antibiotics,” Groome said. “It really is becoming very facile to suggest that, 'Oh, I can't raise this animal unless I have antibiotics.'"
For the beef industry's part, it's unlikely producers will be able to fully eliminate their use of preventive antibiotics anytime soon, said Reynold Bergen, science director for the industry-led Beef Cattle Research Council.
However, Bergen said there are real opportunities to reduce the use of antibiotics, not just through the development of alternative drugs or feed additives but also through improved vaccination practices, nutrition, and animal handling methods.
Bergen added the agriculture industry has as much incentive as anyone to use antibiotics correctly and fight the spread of resistant infections.
“If antibiotics stop working in agriculture, that's not good for animal welfare and it's also not good for economics,” he said.