A PIG-PARADIGM Dialogue on Antimicrobial Resistance

In 2024, discussions on antimicrobial resistance took place in Wageningen, Netherlands. Researchers from UC Davis and universities in Denmark and the Netherlands are joining forces in the research project PIG-PARADIGM to reduce the need for antibiotics in pig production by improving intestinal resilience in developing piglets.

Yanhong Liu, associate professor in the Department of Animal Science at the University of California, Davis, and Director of Swine Research at the UC Davis CLEAR Center, and Jens Peter Nielsen, a professor at the University of Copenhagen are addressing challenges in the pig health in Denmark and the United States in this video.

Here are some highlights discussed:

Yanhong Liu's research primarily evaluates the dietary effects on pig health, aiming to develop new approaches and deploy feed-based health technologies to reduce postweaning diarrhea. Her lab focuses on improving swine nutrition and developing better treatment strategies to reduce antibiotic use in pigs. Liu highlights the challenge of disease control in concentrated animal feeding operations, especially with restricted antibiotic use. In the U.S., pig farmers can lose up to 30% of their stock annually to bacterial infections like E. coli, making the PIG-PARADIGM project highly relevant. Additionally, the project addresses the sustainability of the pig industry, considering the rising feed costs and the potential of using low-cost, climate-friendly byproducts to reduce expenses.

In Denmark, nursery piglets have the highest antibiotic consumption for diarrhea treatment, says Nielsen. Since the phase-out of zinc oxide in 2022, there has been a noticeable increase in antibiotic use during the nursery period. Nielsen emphasizes the importance of focusing on this stage to reduce antibiotic use, which will also minimize the risk of resistance transfer from animals to humans and the development of multi-resistant E. coli strains. He notes the limited availability of non-human-reserved products for treating animals.

Research also explores intestinal health after weaning, aiming to understand why some pigs develop diarrhea while others do not. What is the difference between a robust pig and a pig that develops disease? The aim is to characterize the genome and identify the ideal microbiome at weaning. Potential interventions could include feed supplements or genetic factors that could be integrated into breeding programs. Smarter antibiotic use and optimization are crucial to reducing resistance.