You’ve probably heard about the recent outbreak of salmonella linked to ground beef sold in New England and New York. Something about the outbreak you might not have heard is that the type of Salmonella people have become infected with is resistant to most antibiotics, making it difficult to treat. It’s yet another reason why we need to take a tougher stance on agricultural practices that contribute to bacterial resistance.
Antibiotics save millions of lives, but doctors around the world say their effectiveness is being threatened. How? As bacteria are exposed to antibiotics, they develop resistance to these drugs.
To counter this, doctors have developed strategies to limit our exposure to unnecessary antibiotics. But in the last several decades, bacteria have been repeatedly and needlessly exposed to antibiotics at industrial farms. In fact, 70 percent of antibiotics purchased in the country are used not on humans, but on animals.
The drugs aren’t being used to make animals healthier-only a small percentage actually treats sick animals. The majority of them are used to compensate for the practices of factory farms, where thousands of animals are raised in crowded, unsanitary conditions for maximum profit. Put in feed, the antibiotics make animals grow faster and help them cope with their stressful, bacteria-rich environment. For cows, the drugs are used so the animals can be fed corn, a food they are simply not made to digest naturally.
More and more studies have shown the critical link between agricultural use of antibiotics and bacteria’s growing resistance to these drugs. The constant, small amounts fed to animals give bacteria the perfect opportunity to develop stronger and stronger resistances. I think the drugs should be used only on animals that are actually sick. Instead of using antibiotics to compensate for unhealthy environments, we need to change practices to give these animals healthier conditions in the first place.
Over the last forty years, we have gotten more and more of our food from these factory farms. Nowadays, we rarely know where the food we buy comes from. Meanwhile, attempts to overcome the inherent problems of these practices are simply making things worse. A recent study showed that 47 percent of the nation’s meat supply had the presence of drug-resistant bacteria.
The kind of small, sustainable or organic farms we have here in growing number in Maine provide a healthier alternative. A study last summer showed that meat produced on organic farms had dramatically less drug-resistant bacteria than on industrial farms.
Yet, federal policies still favor those huge industrial productions. That is why I recently introduced legislation to support smaller farms and increase people’s access to healthy, local food. My bill includes dozens of proposals to help rebuild our local and regional food systems, including:
? Allowing schools to use more of their federal funding to buy fresh, local foods;
? Making it easier for low-income families to use food stamp benefits at farmers markets;
? Supporting improvements in agricultural infrastructure-things like local slaughterhouses and food distribution networks; and
? Creating a new crop insurance program tailored to the needs of diversified or organic farmers who grow a wide variety of food and can’t easily access traditional crop insurance.
While regulators should move more quickly to clamp down on the use of antibiotics in animal feed, I think these are symptoms of a much bigger problem that can only be solved by developing a food system that supports local food and farms.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree represents Maine’s 1st District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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