“Hey-Farmer! Leave them antibiotics alone!” we might be tempted to sing to the tune of the popular ditty by the Blue Floyd, Pink Mink, or whatever they were called. At first glance, it seems clear: the misuse of antibiotics in farming is one of the major causes of increasing antibiotic resistance. According to the lucid report from Alliance to Save our Antibiotics, over 70% of antibiotics are put into farm animals, not humans. This folly began in the 1950s as a way to boost yields. But it has since become a way to keep the poor beasts in unhealthy conditions which no creature should endure , All as a profit driven source for more food-and what has that done but make us all more portly and obese?( we speak from experience)
Which might lead the unthinking reader to create a new outgroup called “farmers” and start blaming them for all the world’s ills. But it would be wrong. Firstly, the only time we had to deal with farmers for professional reason, we found them to be intelligent, courteous and incredibly knowledgeable about their profession[2] Secondly, for all but the richest, the farming life is one of incredible struggle: a year battling prices, weather, disease, thieves and much sorrow besides, all for one day when a years crop is put into a pitilessly unpredictable market to a price that can hardly ever match the sheer value of the effort of the labour that produced it. When the name of the game is short term survival, no one, and we mean no one, should blame any farmer anywhere for reaching for the nearest short term solution to get them through to the next day.
And there are hundreds of professions like this where the margins are tight, and survival is provisional: in construction, sales, distribution…..where people are almost forced to take a narrow, focussed approach to their task. Is it really fair to ask them to look at the broader picture on matters like antibiotics? Are you really surprised when your electrician,-an intelligent likeable chap- compares the complexities of Brexit to negotiations over gymnasium membership? Is the real problem societal and economic? For more than forty five years now the we have created a society where economic activity is focussed relentlessly around short term goals and intense competition. It may get brick walls built more quickly. But it does not foster collective wisdom, nor the ability to process large societal decisions with anything approaching informed opinion. One day there may have to be a reckoning with this model, if only on the grounds of survival.
[1] Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics | Antibiotic Overuse in Livestock Farming
[2)Keir Hartley The Historic Petworth Herd Sussex Local Nov 22 pp 17 -19
#antibiotic resistance #agriculture #farming #economics #society #Brexit
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