Antibiotic Drugs On livestock:
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), have found that grazing by livestock leads to lower carbon storage in soil compared to grazing by wild herbivores.
- Researchers found that this difference appears to be due to the use of veterinary antibiotics such as tetracycline on livestock.
- The researchers said that when released into the soil through dung and urine, these antibiotics alter the microbial communities in the soil in ways that are detrimental to sequestering carbon.
- The study states that although soils from the wild and livestock areas had many similarities, they differed in one key parameter called carbon use efficiency (CUE), which determines the ability of microbes to store carbon in the soil.
- The soil in the livestock areas had 19% lower CUE.
- Antibiotics such as tetracycline are long-lived and can linger in the soil for decades.
- Its use in cats, dogs, small mammals, horses, or birds to treat bacterial infections or other conditions is ‘off label’ or ‘extra label’.
