Allan Cessna is searching for something sought by few scientists:
antibiotics in the soil.
Cessna, an Agriculture Canada water scientist on loan to the National
Water Research Institute in Saskatoon, recently received unexpected
help when the Saskatchewan government announced it will fund a
$141,300, four-year research project to examine whether two common hog
antibiotics are making their way into soil.
He said new interest in antibiotics and their presence in “places you
might not expect them” may have prompted the government’s sudden
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interest.
Several years ago Cessna proposed to study whether lincomycin and
spectinomycin can travel from pigs to manure to lagoons to soil. Until
last week the proposal remained unfunded.
“It was a bit of a surprise to have the study (suddenly) funded, but it
is necessary research that will help answer some basic questions that
have been out there for some time,” Cessna said.
Ron Clarke, a former livestock veterinary consultant who now works for
Alberta Agriculture, said livestock antibiotics’ role in human
“antibiotic resistance or of antimicrobial resistance in general isn’t
known” and feels that research “like Cessna’s must be done so more good
science can build on this knowledge.”
He said the first step is to find out which antibiotics are in the
environment and to determine how they got there.
“Then we can figure out if they are having any effect on the rest of
the ecosystem.”
Clarke represented the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association on a Health
Canada panel that studied AMR for the last two years and recently
handed in its findings.
“But our report might be one of the reasons for the funding of the
research. We found that very little was really known and it is a
subject that just hasn’t been looked at.”
Clarke said he hopes the federal government will postpone new livestock
antibiotics legislation until “the science behind it is done.”
A recent study by Scottish graduate student Brij Verma found the
antibiotic tetracycline in the South Saskatchewan River at Saskatoon.
Its source was not found and it may either occur naturally or be part
of human or animal waste.
Verma said his study simply pointed out tetracycline was present.
Research into the persistence of antibiotics in the ecosystem “really
hasn’t been done yet. It’s new science.”
Carl Moore, a hog producer from Embro, Ont., who sat on the Health
Canada panel, said he’s glad governments are finally funding research
into antibiotic resistant bacteria.
“I know AMR is suddenly in the news, but we heard on the panel that the
issue of antibiotic resistance was being studied 30 years ago and that
funding was cut for that research and there it died. It had to become a
serious problem before funders decided to spend on it again.”
Cessna’s project will follow antibiotics from pigs to soil.
“If it makes it into the soil then we look at runoff from rain through
simulated rainfall and after winter snow melt … and then in the
ground water.”
His study will piggyback on other research work being done by the
University of Saskatchewan to examine nitrogen in livestock manure and
will take place at swine testing centres in Elstow and Floral, Sask.
“We can take advantage of other research programs by working with
scientists and this allows us to do more research with less money.”
Environment Canada’s Water Research Institute recently acquired a
double mass spectrometer that allows testing for a wide variety of
compounds down to minute levels. The tool was used in Verma’s recent
findings and will be testing samples from the Cessna study.
Cessna and researchers from across Alberta have submitted proposals to
two funding bodies in that province to study E. coli in beef cattle.
Antibiotics will be part of that project.
