Hell or heaven, all about antimicrobial resistance

Let's start by saying what antimicrobials are. They are antibiotic, antiviral, antifungal and antiparasitic drugs used to prevent and treat infections and diseases in humans, animals, and plants.

During the incubation period, microbial agents (infection) develop within organisms and establish themselves, causing disease. Both human and animal or plant organisms are equipped with a defence system potentially capable of eliminating the invading pathogenic microorganism. Potentially, because many adverse factors intervene here.

It must be said that by now every critical issue, especially in agriculture, must be analysed in the light of the climate crisis and the environmental dynamics that are developing. Given that any dynamics inflicted by Mother Nature cannot be controlled by the ecoschemes of the CAP, we now want to talk about antimicrobial resistance.

Antimicrobial resistance: what it is, what it generates

Antimicrobial resistance is a natural phenomenon of adaptation of pathogenic microorganisms that acquire the ability to survive and proliferate, despite the destructive action of antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral and antiparasitic agents. A phenomenon that is a cause for concern at a health level, but which has also made its way into agriculture as far as crops and livestock are concerned.

If in the health system this phenomenon is of great concern, as it would in time make surgery, intensive care, and other medical treatment procedures impossible, leading directly to death, in agriculture it is even more worrying because it would result in a lack of food. But it is not talked about.

This natural phenomenon of adaptation involves:

• the genetic mutation of organisms for which bactericidal, fungicidal, antiparasitic substances are used, in short, so-called poisons, pesticides
• the consequent ineffectiveness of the active ingredients used so far
• the emergence of new bacterial strains resistant to multiple active ingredients (superbugs) and over time to all
• the use of new, more expensive products with more serious side effects
• the spread of the disease in the soil and in healthy plants (in the meantime it takes 9 years to get a new active ingredient on the market)
• serious complications on food quality, nutritional capacity, and the shelf life of agricultural products, to the detriment of animal and human health.

It is clear that the continuous and massive use of these substances cannot improve the already compromised environmental balance. It should also be considered that the climatic imbalance itself (e.g. the absence of typical winter temperatures) has repercussions on raising the resistance threshold of pathogens, leading in turn to an increased use of insecticides and pesticides. What has been considered 'the curse of winter, the eternal absentee on the Mediterranean' is but the effect of our senseless way of operating.

Good and bad, two distinct classes of micro-organisms

Microorganisms play a fundamental biological role: the good ones, by transforming organic matter into inorganic matter, created the soil and made life on our planet possible. The bad (pathogenic) ones, drawing nourishment from the organisms on which they live, can destroy it.

Indeed, it is from the imbalance between these that an epidemiological problem arises.

It is therefore essential to reflect on the introduction of micro-organisms in agriculture, a practice which, as a result of growing environmental problems or simply in order to further improve soil fertility and agricultural production, has become widespread, but which has become a source of pathogen inoculation and alteration of balances.

The introduction of micro-organisms into crops can be very dangerous. In fact, over time, after an apparent improvement, the inoculum becomes a source of imbalance, because it is not a natural process, but a forced process (microbial cultures in the laboratory) that then becomes uncontrollable.

The microbiological activity of the soil, especially in areas of intensive agriculture or where there is strong pressure from parasites and pathogens, and where pollution is greater, suffers from the alteration of the biological balance as a sort of continuous cause-effect is established that generates in the farmer the hamster syndrome, constantly running towards the goal without ever being able to stop and without reaching it.

The impact of antibiotics in agricultural and natural ecosystems

It is boasted that in Europe the use of antibiotics in agricultural crops is banned, yet animal waste containing veterinary drugs (with significant residual activity) is disposed of as fertiliser.
In addition, the policy of reusing sewage sludge and urban waste water in irrigated crops, which is not intended to protect human health and the environment, contributes to what I refer to above by the term 'serious complications', because the transmission of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to humans through food is not just a risk or a hypothesis. The gene records everything, and Mother Nature's memory book is well kept.

The disastrous consequences for mankind in some ways have already been announced: antibiotics cease to work, people are exposed to diseases that cannot be cured, deaths due to antimicrobial resistance increase.

The work of the agricultural sector: soil and water contamination

Agriculture is a primary sector, but its importance is also crucial with regard to the damage inflicted on the environment.

The contamination of soils and waters is not only a matter of intensive agriculture, all farmers are victims of the pharmaceutical industry, all have been using fungicides, insecticides and herbicides (hormones and antibiotics in agro-livestock) and only recently, like battlefield veterans, are they beginning to call for help, to save their soils, their crops and... themselves.

When people ask us if using BioAksxter® makes it possible to avoid agrochemicals and if it is all true what we say, I immediately realise that that farmer is not free, but is still in the hands of someone who sees us as a threat rather than a solution. And that someone is usually and somehow on the payroll of the multinationals.

Since we came into the market, we have never made war on anyone (they make war on us) but we have always proposed de-pollution to eliminate the problems of modern agriculture.
Since 22 years have passed since our advent, but also since the silent directives that have destroyed the environment, we now thank those who have turned paradise into hell.