Environmental and economic impacts of improved antibiotics stewardship in poultry systems

There is a need to regulate use of antimicrobial medicines in food animal production. Focusing poultry supply chains, this project adopts a One Health approach to understand and quantify the environmental and economic impacts (costs and benefits) of modified antimicrobial use and to co-design system interventions that are feasible, acceptable and cost-effective for producers. We take a whole supply/value chain perspective, using economic and social research methods to understand the role of all actors and transfer of value from breeding to retail, to define these interventions. . We will also quantify the abundance and diversity of AMR along this chain, supported by in vivo and in vitro studies. Samples will be collected and microbiological and metagenomic data will be analysed in collaboration with University of Edinburgh, as part of postdoctoral training/exchanges. Our interdisciplinary research will inform rational use and the development of decision support tools to inform production (e.g. on farm). We will develop the notion of antimicrobial stewardship as an industry (voluntary) approach, but we also consider other mandatory and market-based policy scenarios for measure compliance. Our methodologies will consider industry-wide effects and will be appropriate for use in other LMIC contexts for data collection and prioritisation of poultry sector antimicrobial use (AMU) interventions. This project suggest a marginal abatement cost framework as an integrative element for other projects funded under this call.