Rapid growth of antimicrobial resistance: the role of agriculture in the problem and the solutions

Abstract

The control of infectious diseases has always been a top medical priority. For years during the so-called antibiotic era, we enjoyed prolonged life expectancy and the benefits of superior pathogen control. The devastating failure of the medical system, agriculture and pharmaceutical companies and the general population to appreciate and safeguard these benefits is now leading us into a grim post-antibiotic era. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) refers to microorganisms becoming resistant to antibiotics that were designed and expected to kill them. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, AMR was recognised by the World Health Organization as the central priority area with growing public awareness of the threat AMR now presents. The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, a project commissioned by the UK government, predicted that the death toll of AMR could be one person every 3 seconds, amounting to 10 million deaths per year by 2050. This review aims to raise awareness of the evergrowing extensiveness of antimicrobial resistance and identify major sources of this adversity, focusing on agriculture’s role in this problem and its solutions. Keypoints • Widespread development of antibiotic resistance is a major global health risk. • Antibiotic resistance is abundant in agricultural produce, soil, food, water, air and probiotics. • New approaches are being developed to control and reduce antimicrobial resistance.

Horizontal Gene Transfer of Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Biofilms

“…There is an urgent need to develop new antibiotics and strategies to prevent the development of antibiotic resistance [77]. It is not only clinical environments that support the spread of ARGs, but wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and agriculture are also considered hotspots for ARG propagation [78][79][80][81]. If ARGs are not completely removed by wastewater treatment, they are released into the wastewater effluent.…”

The phc Quorum-Sensing System in Ralstonia solanacearum Species Complex

“…Inhibition of the phc QS system is an attractive approach to control the pathogenicity and virulence of RSSC strains. Particularly, the pesticides that exert strong survival selection pressure on microbes, such as antibiotics and fungicides, will be increasingly difficult to use in the field (14,55,82). In studies of the AHL-QS systems, enzymatic degradation of signaling molecules was shown to dramatically affect bacterial virulence (22,23,32).…”

Genomic sequencing should extend to diverse priority pathogens for effective study and surveillance of antimicrobial resistance: a systematic review of whole-genome sequencing studies from India

“…AMR studies from all over the world have reported widespread presence of resistance genes in water, soil as well as in food items. [143][144][145] This 'One health' approach of study underlines the importance of tracking resistance across abiotic environments alongside the clinics. 30 We thus looked for studies that reported whole-genome sequences of priority pathogens isolated from environments or food items.…”