Antibiotics Underground

Ambience:
When sick cows are treated with antibiotics, farmers destroy the milk from those cows. But there’s still a possibility that the antibiotics could impact the environment. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

Knowlton: In the dairy industry, it is just the small proportion of cows on any farm that happen to be sick. It’s their manure that we’re concerned about, not their milk.

Katharine Knowlton is a professor in the Department of Dairy Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech.

Knowlton: When we give an animal an antibiotic, the vast majority of that antibiotic is excreted in manure. When we’re thinking about any potential contribution of antibiotics to antibiotic resistance, it’s the waste stream we have to worry about.
On farms, manure is recycled as a fertilizer. We spread it on the land for crops to use as a nutrient source. But we do have to recognize that a small proportion of that manure – maybe 2% of the cows on any farm – if we spread that manure on the land, we are spreading antibiotics on the land.
The concern is greater actually with with wastewater treatment plants, because of course they discharge directly into streams. Wastewater treatment plants are not set up to break down the antibiotics.
When we apply manure to the land, our concern is that if any of that soil runs off and gets into streams, now we are potentially contributing to this global problem of antibiotic resistance. That gives us the opportunity to treat that manure, break down those antibiotics.

In our next program, finding ways to degrade antibiotics in manure before it’s used as fertilizer. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. You can hear this and previous programs on our podcast.

Antibiotics Underground

Farmers destroy the milk from cows treated with antibiotics. But the antibiotics could still impact the environment outside the farm.

Air Date:03/15/2016

Scientist:

Transcript:

Antibiotics Underground

Ambience:
When sick cows are treated with antibiotics, farmers destroy the milk from those cows. But there's still a possibility that the antibiotics could impact the environment. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

Knowlton: In the dairy industry, it is just the small proportion of cows on any farm that happen to be sick. It's their manure that we're concerned about, not their milk.

Katharine Knowlton is a professor in the Department of Dairy Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech.

Knowlton: When we give an animal an antibiotic, the vast majority of that antibiotic is excreted in manure. When we're thinking about any potential contribution of antibiotics to antibiotic resistance, it's the waste stream we have to worry about.
On farms, manure is recycled as a fertilizer. We spread it on the land for crops to use as a nutrient source. But we do have to recognize that a small proportion of that manure - maybe 2% of the cows on any farm - if we spread that manure on the land, we are spreading antibiotics on the land.
The concern is greater actually with with wastewater treatment plants, because of course they discharge directly into streams. Wastewater treatment plants are not set up to break down the antibiotics.
When we apply manure to the land, our concern is that if any of that soil runs off and gets into streams, now we are potentially contributing to this global problem of antibiotic resistance. That gives us the opportunity to treat that manure, break down those antibiotics.

In our next program, finding ways to degrade antibiotics in manure before it's used as fertilizer. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. You can hear this and previous programs on our podcast.