Assessing Agroecology Benefits and Novel Chemical and AMR Risks in Adopting a Sanitation-Agriculture Circular Economy

据估计，到2050年全球人口将达到98亿，而要满足不断增长的人口对农业的需求，我们面临的问题是，土壤中的基本营养物质正在枯竭，主要农业区的产量将下降，预计未来降雨量将减少。农业和有机废物流之间的循环经济可以通过大规模地从卫生废物固体、污水和牲畜粪便中回收水、生物质和营养物质来回收农业所需的基本资源。这为农业生态实践带来了好处，减少了对化肥投入的依赖，具有改善土壤健康、减少农业温室气体排放和减少农田排水中的水污染等多重好处。然而，这种解决方案也存在潜在的风险和挑战，需要充分了解这些风险和挑战，以确保资源回收能够长期以安全和可持续的方式进行。首先，人类和动物的胃肠道是环境和农业食物链的病原体来源。因此，再利用这些废物可能会将这些病原体传播到我们食用的粮食作物中。第二，粪便和污水是兽医和医疗化学品对环境的来源；这些化合物可以增强微生物抵抗治疗药物（如抗生素）的能力。这种抵抗治疗药物的能力可以传播给其他对植物、动物和人类疾病很重要的微生物。抗菌素耐药性（AMR）是一项全球公共卫生危机，预计到2050年每年将造成1000万人死亡。目前，家畜和环境被认为是抗微生物药物耐药性微生物的储存库，并与这些抗微生物药物耐药性微生物的传播有关。因此，以科学为基础的方法来评估同时暴露于抗微生物选择性化合物和抗菌素耐药性微生物的环境、牲畜和人类健康风险，对于充分实现卫生-农业循环经济的潜在效益至关重要。了解、测量和评估农业暴露途径影响的模型、分析工具和定量评估方法迫切需要科学关注。通过了解回收废物流所带来的安全风险，可以设计新的干预措施以尽量减少这些风险，使资源回收成为提高土壤和农业生产力的可行机制。我们将与自来水公司和国家养猪中心合作，研究如何将水和农场废物循环利用到农业中。利用实验室模型，我们将确定病原体和化学物质沿着不同废物流聚集的地方，从而确定需要采取干预措施的地方。利用这些信息，我们将定义一个风险评估分析来处理病原体和化学物质的积累。我们建议通过承认人类、动物和环境之间的联系，在“一个健康、一个环境”的基础上，进一步解决抗生素耐药性问题。该项目将支持英国卫生循环经济的发展，并建立一个以英国为主导、覆盖全球的创新网络。该项目的总体目标是建立一个由教育、工业、农业和政府同事组成的社区，以提高英国应对与采用循环经济支持农业生产相关的全球污染挑战的能力。循环经济方法对于满足全球农业需求至关重要，特别是加强农业在气候控制和实现温室气体净零排放方面的作用。这项建议将为实现这一目标铺平道路，同时尽量减少利用废物对环境以及动物和人类健康的影响。

We are faced with meeting the agricultural demands of a growing population estimated to reach 9.8 billion people by 2050 on soils depleted of essential nutrients, with declining yields and a projected reduction in future rainfall in key agricultural regions. A circular economy between agriculture and organic waste streams can recycle essential resources for farming through the recovery of water, biomass, and nutrients from sanitation waste solids, effluents, and livestock manure at scale. This offers benefits to agroecological practices in farming by reducing the reliance on chemical fertiliser inputs with multiple benefits that improve soil health, reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farming, and reduce water pollution in drainage from fields. However, there are potential risks and challenges associated with this solution and these need to be fully understood to enable resource recovery to operate in a safe and sustainable manner in the long term. Firstly, the gastrointestinal tracts of humans and animals are a source of pathogens to the environment and agriculture food chain. So, reusing these wastes could potentially spread these pathogens to the food crops we consume. Secondly, manure and sewage are sources of veterinary and medical chemicals to the environment; these compounds can enhance a microbe's ability to resist treatment drugs, such as antibiotics. This ability to resist treatment drugs can spread to other microbes important for plant, animal, and human diseases. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global public health crisis that is predicted to cause 10 million deaths per year by 2050. Currently, livestock and the environment are recognised as reservoirs of antimicrobial resistant microbes and implicated in the dissemination of these AMR microbes. Science-based methods to assess the environmental, livestock and human health risks of combined exposure to antimicrobial selective compounds and AMR microbes are therefore central to fully realising the potential benefits of a sanitation-agriculture circular economy. Models, analytical tools, and quantitative assessment methods to understand, measure and assess the impacts of agricultural exposure routes urgently warrant scientific attention. Through understanding the safety risks recycling waste streams pose, new interventions can be devised to minimise these risks, making resource recycling a viable mechanism to increase soil and farm productivity. Working with water utility companies and the National Pig Centre, we will investigate how water and farm waste can be recycled to be used in agriculture. Using laboratory models, we will identify where pathogens and chemicals aggregate along the different waste streams, thus identify where interventions need to be made. Using this information, we will define a risk assessment analysis to tackle pathogen and chemical buildup. We propose to build on the 'one-health, one environment' approach to AMR by acknowledging the connectivity between humans, animals and the environment. This project will support the development of a UK sanitation-circular economy and build a UK-led innovation network with global reach. The overall aim of the project is to build a community of educational, industry, farming, and government colleagues to increase the capacity of the UK to address global pollution challenges associated with adopting a circular economy to support agricultural production. A circular economy approach is essential in meeting global agricultural needs, especially enhancing the role that farming can play in climate control and our need to move towards Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions. This proposal will pave the way in achieving this goal whilst minimising the impact of utilising waste materials on the environment and animal and human health.