Addressing Antimicrobial Resistance in U.S. Poultry: Why Environmental Surveillance Matters

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) can feel like an abstract, far-away crisis until you realize how easily it travels through connected systems and how quietly it can persist when we only watch the “end product.” We talk with Dr. Pankaj Gaonkar about antimicrobial resistance in the U.S. poultry industry, starting with a clear definition of AMR and why it is a pressing global health and economic threat. From there, we dig into the uncomfortable reality that resistance can still be detected even as antimicrobial use declines, and why that “disconnect” matters for veterinarians, producers, and anyone who cares about food systems.

A big theme is scale and structure. Modern poultry production is often vertically integrated, moving birds through a coordinated chain from breeder farms and hatcheries to broiler grow-out and processing. That efficiency has a downside: if antimicrobial resistant bacteria emerge at one point, they can move through the system. We also unpack how disease pressure in high-density environments can influence therapeutic decisions, and how older antimicrobial exposure can leave behind residues and resistant organisms that continue to shape selection pressure over time.

The heart of our conversation is environmental surveillance and the One Health approach. Monitoring litter, soil, water, and air around poultry houses helps reveal where resistance is maintained and how it moves between “inside” and “outside” the farm. Pankaj explains key tools like metagenomics, qPCR, and culture-based methods, along with the real challenges around cost, standardization, and interpreting results in complex microbial communities. We close with practical roles for veterinarians and producers, and what smarter policy could look like to strengthen AMR monitoring without creating unnecessary burden.

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JAVMA article: https://doi.org/10.2460/javma.25.07.0488

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Transcript

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Lisa Fortier 0:31

Welcome to the Epical Warren Woody Veterinary Vertex, the Avium Aid Journal's podcast where we delve into behind-the-scenes looked with manuscript authors. I'm editor-in-chief Lisa Fortier, joined by Associate Editor Sarah Wright. Today, we're discussing antimicrobial resistance United States poultry with Pankaj Gauchker. Thanks so much for being here with us today. Thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Lisa Fortier 0:57

Before we really jump in, can you briefly explain what antimicrobial resistance is and why it's such an uh pressing global health concern?

SPEAKER_01 1:05

So antimicrobials, so I always think like what is its main purpose? So the main purpose of antimicrobial is to kill or inhibit certain pathogens. And antimicrobial resistance, it occurs when bacteria develop the ability to survive the drugs that were once effective against them. And when that happens, infection becomes harder and sometimes impossible to treat. And it is considered as like a pressing global health concern mainly because of its scale and the huge impact it can have. Because currently it is reported that antimicrobial resistance is estimated to cause around 700,000 human deaths each year globally. And the projection suggests that if no action or no interventions are taken, then this number could rise to around 10 million annual deaths of humans by 2050. Beyond human health, antimicrobial resistance also has major economic consequences. What fascinates me about it is that it is projected that widespread resistance could reduce the global GDP by nearly 4%. When we think about it, it is actually comparable to the impact of 2008 financial crisis, and we all know how bad that was. And what makes antimicrobial resistance particularly challenging is that it affects human medicine, veterinary medicine, agriculture, and environment simultaneously. And that interconnected nature is why it's considered a true one health issue as well.

Why Focus On US Poultry

Sarah Wright 2:36

Yeah, thank you for explaining that in a way that really I think resonates with anyone who's listening to this. Like it's important for all of us to recognize the impact that antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, as we'll refer to it from here, can have. So, Pinkaj, what motivated you to focus specifically on AMR in the context of the US poultry industry?

SPEAKER_01 2:55

So, poultry is one of the fastest growing protein sectors, not only in the United States, but also at the global scale. It is a highly efficient and poultry production, it operates on a very large scale. Over the last decade, antimicrobial use in US poultry has declined significantly, which is encouraging, and I'm really happy about that. But what I've seen that and what I read around is that antimicrobial resistant bacteria are still being detected in the retail meat. And that disconnect, like that made me ask like, what else might be sustaining this antimicrobial resistance? And that's what led me to explore the environmental dimension. When I say environmental dimension, what I actually mean is the farm environment as a potential reservoir that may continue to maintain and spread the antimicrobial resistance even after the antimicrobial use is reduced.

How Vertical Integration Spreads AMR

Lisa Fortier 3:46

Yeah, it is a good point that everybody's become more and more aware of uh more judicial use of antimicrobials. But how does that structure and what you talked about, the scale of poultry production in the United States and elsewhere influence the development and spread of antimicrobial resistance?

SPEAKER_01 4:03

So in the United States, the poultry industry is highly vertically integrated. Meaning, what I mean to say is by vertical integration, is that bird moves through a coordinated production chain, for example, from breeder farms to hatcheries to broilers and then to the processing plant. This structure brings efficiency, but it also means that if antimicrobial resistance emerges at one stage, then it has a potential to move along the entire production chain. And in addition, we all know that any production environment or also the poultry production operates at a large scale with relatively high stocking density. And in any high density system, a disease transmission can occur more readily, which can increase the need for therapeutic use of antimicrobials to protect the animal welfare. And that is where it creates a selective pressure for favoring the resistant bacteria. So the key issue here is not the scale alone, but how the production structure, disease dynamics, antimicrobial use, and environmental factors they interact within the system. Understanding those interactions helps us identify where surveillance and interventions can be most effective.

Reduced Antibiotics Yet Resistance Persists

Sarah Wright 5:18

So, what are some of the current antimicrobial use practices in poultry farming and how do they contribute to AMR even when reductions have been made?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

So over the past decade, antimicrobial use in United States poultry has declined substantially, which is a very positive shift. Many systems today follow the labels like no antibiotics ever or something like raised without antibiotics. In this system, antibiotic usage is entirely eliminated. However, there is an exception. Let's say if bird becomes sick or if there is some severe disease outbreak, then they can be treated with antimicrobials mainly for the welfare reason. However, then that flock is then removed from the no antibiotics program. And then the another approach is what we call as NAIHM, which means no antibiotics important to human medicine. In this scenario, antimicrobials that are not medically important for humans can be used. And one such example is the use of ionophores for coccidiosis control. However, even with this reduced antimicrobial use, any historic or any past antimicrobial use can still influence the AMR. Residues from previous antimicrobial use can persist in the farm environment, particularly in the liter, where they may exist at a low or sub-inhibitory concentration. So over time what happens is this creates a selective pressure, allowing bacteria to develop resistance and persist in the environment, thus, potentially it impacts the subsequent batch of flocks. And on top of that, a biosecurity plays a very important role here. Resistant bacteria can move between the inside and outside farm environment through the vectors such as air, water, liter, or soil. So while reducing uh antimicrobial use, it is essential, it alone may not be sufficient to mitigate the AMR. You also need to consider environmental persistence and transmission pathways to fully understand and manage the problems associated with AMR.

Lisa Fortier 7:28

I really like how you keep bringing this into this is really a one-health disease. It's humans and animals and the environment. And your article highlights some of the importance of these environments of environmental surveillance. And for our listeners, can you please describe what you mean by environmental surveillance in this context?

SPEAKER_01 7:47

So in this context, uh environmental surveillance, it means simply systematically monitoring antimicrobial resistance in the farm environment, not just in the birds or the carcasses, but in the places like litter, soil, water, and even air in and around the poultry house. So by doing that, it shifts the focus from just end product to what's happening in the production system itself. The goal here is to understand where resistance may be present and how it is maintained within the farm environment. So, in so, for example, in addition to looking at the end product, environmental surveillance will help us understand what's happening within the production system itself, where resistance may be maintained, amplified, or even transmitted. It can help us understand how resistance is maintained and evolves outside the host, which is critical but often overlooked part of the one health framework.

Sarah Wright 8:44

So, why is environmental sampling such as soil, water, and air, critical for understanding AMR dynamics and poultry farms?

SPEAKER_01 8:52

The reason this is important is because environment is an active ecological system where bacteria are constantly interacting, competing, and evolving. These environments have potential to act as both reservoir and transmission pathways for antimicrobial resistance. These environments are not isolated. There is a constant interaction between the inside and outside environment, and that creates like an opportunity for the spread of AMR. So one way to look at it would be, for example, let's say inside the poultry house, liter can accumulate the antimicrobial residues and resistant bacteria that were shed by the birds, and outside the house, soil can become contaminated due to the runoff or due to the biosecurity breaches. So, in this case, if we only focus on the birds or carcasses, so here we are missing the bigger ecological context in which the resistance is maintained. So environmental sampling is helping us to capture the bigger picture overall.

Lisa Fortier 9:53

As well as it sounds like we're doing and poultry is doing, what are some of the current gaps going to be addressed in AMI's surveillance in the efforts within at least within the poultry sector?

SPEAKER_01 10:04

So one of the biggest gaps that we feel is going to be the environmental component is not being included in current AMR surveillance system. And most of the existing program focuses on fecal and carcass sample. So yeah, so including the environmental component will help us to improve the surveillance efforts as well.

Sarah Wright 10:22

So measuring AMR and environmental samples can be complex, as we've already alluded to. What are the key challenges that you face in this area?

Soil Water Air And Litter Sampling

SPEAKER_01 10:30

This is a very important question. Even as a researcher and as a PhD student, like this is has been one of the biggest challenges. So what we feel is that measuring antimicrobial resistance in environment samples, it's it's very challenging and it's very that much challenge and it's that complex, it mainly because of that environmental structure, because that environment that we look into for AMR, that environment itself is a very complex structure. So by complex, what I mean is that we are not dealing with the single organism here. We are dealing with the entire microbial communities that are interacting with each other within that particular environmental sample as well. And then the another major challenge is that there is no single standardized method for environmental AMR surveillance. There are like different approaches, for example, like using metagenomics, QPCR, and culture-based method. So each method they have their uh abilities, like the their pros and cons. Each will provide you with different pieces of information, but each method has their own limitation. So, for example, if we look into much further in detail, metagenomics it gives us a broader view of resistant genes, but it doesn't always tell us whether those genes are functional. Whereas QPCR, it is a very sensitive method, but it is limited to the specific genes we choose to target. And culture-based methods can confirm the functional resistance, but only for the organisms that can be grown in the lab. On top of that, there are practical challenges such as cost, data analysis, and lack of standardized protocol. So the difficulty is not just detecting resistance, but it's about interpreting what it means in a complex and dynamic environment.

Lisa Fortier 12:17

Given all that you've said about this complex environment, how does the concept of One Health help you frame your recommendations for expanded surveillance and mitigation strategies?

Tools And Challenges For Measuring AMR

SPEAKER_01 12:27

So, as we know that One Health recognizes the human, animal, and environmental health as are interconnected to each other. So, in the context of AMR, we can't focus only on antimicrobial youths and birds themselves. You also need to understand how resistance persists and moves through the environment. Expanding surveillance to include the environmental component helps us to identify where resistance is maintained and where interventions can be most effective.

Sarah Wright 12:54

So, Pankaj, what role can veterinarians and producers play in improving environmental surveillance and controlling AMR at the farm level?

SPEAKER_01 13:02

From a veterinary perspective, we are responsible for ensuring the judicious antimicrobial use while also protecting the animal welfare. But increasingly, our role is expanding beyond the treatment decision to thinking more holistically about the system, such as identifying the hotspot or critical points in the farm environment that might be an important source of bacterial diseases. Whereas for producers, on the other hand, they are very key in implementing the practical and day-to-day management strategies. Producers can implement practical measures, for example, such as liter management and strong biosecurity between inside and outside environment.

Lisa Fortier 13:41

Yeah, I love the emphasis on the role of the veterinarian. And on top of that, do you see a need for a change in policy, regulation, or industry guidelines to support better AMR monitoring and poultry?

One Health Solutions Policy And Roles

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Yeah, definitely. Because the current surveillance programs are limited to enter pathogens from slaughterhouse or retail meat. I do think that there is an opportunity to strengthen the current AMR monitoring framework by explicitly incorporating the environmental component. So this can be done by developing standardized protocols for sampling environments like liters, soil, and water. This would allow for more consistent data collection and better comparison across the farms and region. It could also involve things like improving the access to centralized and the farm level antimicrobial use data. There is also a need to better integrate different types of data, for example, linking the antimicrobial use, antimicrobial residues, resistant genes, phenotypic resistance, and biosecurity. This kind of integrated approach would provide a more complete understanding of AMR dynamics. At the same time, it is important that any changes that are practical and that they do not add too much of a burden for producers. The goal here is not to simply have more regulation, but smarter, more coordinated surveillance that fits within the One Health framework and supports both animal health and public health outcomes.

Lisa Fortier 15:07

Yeah, I really like how you frame all of your answers to bring it back to reality and real application. And if our listeners today could take away one key message from this episode with you about AMR and culture production, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 15:22

I would say that reducing antimicrobial use is essential. It's very important. I mean, no doubt about that. But it alone is not enough. If we want to effectively control the antimicrobial resistance, we need to understand and address what's happening in the farm environment where resistance can persist and spread. And with the overall multimethod and combiterial approach, we can actually be able to effectively tackle the problems associated with antimicrobial resistance.

Sarah Wright 15:52

Very well said. I feel super inspired after listening to you, Pancash, and all your answers. So thank you so much for taking the time to share your knowledge with our listeners and also for submitting your article too to Javma.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Thank you.

Sarah Wright 16:05

For our listeners and viewers, you can read Pancash's article in Javma. I'm Sarah Wright here with Lisa Fortier. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of Veterinary Vertex. And don't forget to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.