Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's research program on antimicrobial resistance

A key strategy for attenuating the development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is ensuring judicious use of antimicrobials in human and veterinary medicine and in agriculture. Research on AMR in agriculture includes risk assessment, risk management, and identifying the role of agricultural practices in development of AMR. Risk assessment includes an impact assessment of antimicrobial use in livestock and on the environment; for example, many antimicrobials are excreted unchanged and thus reach the environment through manure application. This creates the potential for AMR transmission through the food processing chain and into agro-ecosystems receiving the agricultural waste. Risk management includes the assessment of cost-effective methods to keep animals healthy without the need for antimicrobial use, such as the use of vaccines, nutritional supplements and pre-, pro- or synbiotics and of waste management strategies to avoid AMR transmission. Currently, there is an important gap in understanding the degree of human exposure to AMR that is generated through agriculture, the burden of illness of AMR pathogens in human populations and the relationship between exposure and burden of illness. It is important that research on the agricultural, environmental and human medicine dimensions of AMR not be undertaken in silos, which is why the United Nations and countries around the world are working together within the One Health Framework that considers the inter-relatedness of humans, animals and the environment.