10
Mar
Pesticide and Antibiotic Resistance Genes: An Escalating Global Health Crisis
(Beyond Pesticides, March 10, 2026) An article in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry identifies pesticides, often neglected, as a core factor in the spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in agricultural environments. With antibiotic and antimicrobial resistance growing and infections becoming untreatable and deadly, the World Health Organization (WHO) has identified the problem as a “silent pandemic.”
The authors, from Yangzhou University in China, highlight the persistence of both pesticide residues and ARGs throughout the environment, with both being found in water, soil, air, animal manure, and the human gut. “Existing studies have fully confirmed that pesticides are not isolated in the agricultural ecosystem but deeply participate in the proliferation and spread of ARGs through direct coselection, indirect induction of multiple resistances, and promotion of horizontal gene transfer, forming a combined pollution risk that superimposes on the traditional sources,†the authors note. The now well-known phenomenon of horizontal gene transfer—the movement of genes in bacteria from one bacterial species to another, which is facilitated by phages—means that ARGs in those (possibly harmless) bacteria can move to bacteria that cause disease in plants or humans.
As stated in previous Daily News posts, pesticides by themselves are a grave threat to health and the environment. As is global warming. As is antibiotic resistance. Each of these problems has to be analyzed in its own silo to reveal the mechanisms driving their dynamics. But eventually, it must be acknowledged that they actually converge. ARGs, considered a class of pollutants, are found in certain types of bacteria and can spread through the environment and subsequently to humans and animals. The problem of antibiotic resistance, and the role of pesticides in promoting this resistance, is an urgent global phenomenon and public health crisis. To safeguard public health and ecological security, the spread of resistance genes in agricultural environments, as well as the practices that promote them, need to be eliminated.
Mechanisms of Pesticide-ARG Interactions
ARGs are continuously released into the environment. “However, current policies and research mainly focus on the issue of antibiotic abuse, while the widespread presence of pesticides in agricultural environments and their potential impacts on ARGs have not received sufficient attention for a long time,†the researchers say. They continue: “While paying attention to the contribution of livestock breeding and medical waste to antibiotic resistance genes in the environment, we must also recognize that the widespread use of pesticides, including herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides, is a powerful but underestimated selection pressure and driving factor for the generation, enrichment, and spread of ARGs.â€
The review highlights three core mechanisms in which pesticides promote the spread of ARGs:
- Direct coselection pressure. Many agricultural pesticides, particularly the triazole fungicides tebuconazole, propiconazole, and difenoconazole, share a similar mechanism of action with clinical antifungal agents like fluconazole and voriconazole. “All these compounds target the CYP51 enzyme in the ergosterol biosynthesis pathway within fungal cell membranes,†the authors note. “When microorganisms alter this common target to survive, they can develop resistance to both classes of drugs simultaneously.†Tebuconazole, for instance, induces cross-resistance, as shown in a study of Cryptococcus neoformans. (See study here.)
- Indirect coselection and induction of multiple resistances. Microorganisms, when under pressure from pesticide exposure, activate defense mechanisms called “efflux pumps†to expel harmful substances. Since many efflux pumps do not have strong substrate specificity, they can also “expel structurally similar antibiotics from cells, leading to tolerance to multiple drugs.†The researchers continue, describing: “More and more studies have shown that soil pesticide pollution is related to the formation of bacterial pesticide–antibiotic cross-resistance. Bacteria in the environment have acquired pesticide–antibiotic cross-resistance to resist the dual selection pressure of pesticides and antibiotics.†This cross-resistance then increases the spread of bacterial multidrug resistance in the environment and further threatens human health.
- Promotion of horizontal gene transfer. Concentrations of pesticide residues, even at sublethal levels, significantly accelerate the spread and diffusion of ARGs. “Pesticide stress can directly activate the stress response system of microorganisms and promote horizontal gene transfer,†the authors note. As an example, research finds that the fungicide mancozeb induces “bursts of bacterial reactive oxygen species,†as well as additional changes to repair responses and cell membrane permeability.
The promoting effect of pesticides on ARGs is not limited to chemical-intensive agricultural areas, as “its influence has significant cross-border transmission characteristics.†In addition, global change factors (e.g., nitrogen deposition) intensify pesticide-induced stress and can further promote the mobilization of ARGs through soil, water, and air. “This kind of transmission network that transcends environmental media and geographical boundaries has transformed local agricultural pollution problems into regional or even global public health risks,†the researchers state.
Previous Coverage
Beyond Pesticides has long documented the science identifying the role of pesticides in the spread of ARGs. Just over the past two years, multiple Daily News articles have focused on the threat of ARGs to health and the environment, as scientific literature continues to connect chemical-intensive agricultural practices to this major crisis.
- Combination of Pesticide and Nitrogen Use in Agriculture Escalates the Spread of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (October 2025)—An important study links pesticides, antibiotics, and nitrogen fertilizers to the extreme global crisis of antibiotic resistance, raising serious concerns about the adverse impacts of conventional (chemical-intensive) agricultural practices. A research team, from several Chinese universities and laboratories and Queen’s University in Belfast, conducted a three-year study in China using soil bacteria and phages (bacteriophages, or viruses that invade bacteria) from an experimental field, exposing them to a variety of conditions ranging from the control (no exposures) to various combinations of nitrogen fertilizer and two categories of pesticides (the insecticide chlorpyrifos and a blend of the fungicides azoxystrobin and propiconazole).
- Escalating Bacterial Resistance Supports Call for Antibiotic Pesticide Ban in Agriculture and Synthetic Turf (October 2025)—With the release of a study that links the use of nitrogen fertilizer in combination with antibiotic pesticides to escalating bacterial resistance, public health advocates are renewing their call for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Congress to eliminate antibiotic pesticide use in land management. This action comes on the heels of a WHO study finding that antibiotic resistance is evolving even faster than previously thought.
- As Millions Die from Antibiotic-Resistant Infections Annually, Study Shines Light on Pesticide Connection (July 2025)—Pesticides and antibiotics are linked inextricably in the looming crisis of human and ecosystem health. Both started out as quasi-miraculous solutions to age-old human problems, yet it has been clear that the failures of each present severe challenges—and that they are synergistic because they trigger the same kinds of defensive mechanisms in their targets: insects, fungi, and weeds on the one hand, and microbes on the other. A review of contamination of waterways in India with pesticides and antibiotics, published in Environmental and Geochemical Health, recounts the many threats that arise when these chemicals mix and how their presence in water makes the problems much worse.Â
- Group Calls on Congress and EPA to Ban Pesticides Leading to Antimicrobial Resistance and Global Health Threat (July 2025)—As the problem of antimicrobial-resistant infections continues to escalate to pandemic proportions, Beyond Pesticides is again calling on Congress and the federal government to urgently start to eliminate the use of pesticides that contribute to antibiotic resistance. While data accumulates on antimicrobial resistance, the 79th United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on antimicrobial resistance (September 2024) points to nearly five million deaths in 2019 from antibiotic-resistant microbial infections and $1 trillion in annual health care costs per year by 2050 globally.
- Study Finds Synergistic Convergence of Global Warming, Pesticide Toxicity, and Antibiotic Resistance (May 2025)—A study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials by scientists at six Chinese universities and research centers examines the convergence in springtails (Folsomia candida)—tiny insect-like animals that live in soils worldwide and are commonly used as laboratory subjects. The researchers exposed springtails to the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid at three concentrations and three temperatures. In addition to measuring the springtails’ direct mortality, the researchers also investigated the microbes in the animals’ guts, checking for expression of genes involved in antibiotic resistance.
- Mechanism for Escalating Antibiotic Resistance in Agriculture Detailed in Study, as Crisis Grows (January 2025)—Adding to the body of scientific literature on the fast-escalating antibiotic resistance crisis is a study published by Chinese scientists in Environmental Science & Technology, which shows that antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in soils move up through trophic levels via predation. Gut microbiomes of soil fauna have been found to be reservoirs of ARGs. How this process operates in soils is vital because what happens in soil microbes does not stay there. If bacteria altered in soils move up trophic levels, ARGs may strengthen the multicellular agricultural pests the industry is trying to kill—insects, fungi, plants—not to mention bringing their libraries of resistant genes into the microbiomes of vertebrates, including humans.
- Children’s Health Threatened by Antimicrobial Use in Agriculture, Pediatric Doctors Say (October 2024)—The American Academy of Pediatrics published a technical report in September on antimicrobial resistance, which it calls a global public health threat, identifying the health implications of antibiotic use in animal agriculture. The lead authors, both medical doctors from the Department of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, note the rise in antimicrobial-resistant infections that result in increased morbidity, mortality, and health care costs for not only adults, but also infants and children as well. “[A]ll use of antimicrobial agents exerts selective pressure that increases the risk of development of resistance,†the authors state, highlighting the importance of limiting antimicrobial uses.
- American Academy of Pediatrics and United Nations Issue Alerts on Antibiotic Resistance Crisis (October 2024) The researchers and agencies raising the alarm exhibit a higher degree of concern about antimicrobial resistance—understood as a growing worldwide pandemic—than the history and ongoing inaction by EPA—resulting in the allowance of widespread nonmedical uses of antibiotics in agriculture and on synthetic (or artificial) turf. Contrary to broad scientific understanding, EPA told a federal appeals court, “There is no data that antibiotic use in agriculture leads to the presence of antibiotic resistance in bacteria of human health concern,†and that “[a]t the present time, there is little evidence for or against the presence of microbes of human health concern in the plant agricultural environment.†EPA’s inaction, despite the agency’s sponsoring of research that confirms the spread of antibiotic resistance to humans from horizontal gene transfer in the environment, only adds to the problem. As drug resistance has been documented as being on the rise for years, EPA’s response, or lack thereof, has been increasingly apparent.
- Antibiotic-Resistance Genes Rise with Pesticide Application, as Study Adds to a Plethora of Findings (May 2024) A study from the Academy of Biology and Biotechnologies and the Federal Rostov Agricultural Research Centre adds to the body of science linking pesticide use with negative impacts on soil health and bacterial communities. This study, performed by researchers and soil experts, found an increase in specific bacterial families that host ARGs with exposure to pesticides. Since soil serves as a habitat for a wide range of bacteria, including many that are resistant to antibiotics, analyzing the organisms within soil samples is an indicator of overall environmental health. Agricultural soils are essential in food production, and as this study states, “[I]ntensive exploitation of such soils implies the widespread use of various chemical plant protection products (insecticides, herbicides, fungicides) and mineral fertilizers, which contribute to pollution and a decrease in soil quality.â€Â
Take Action
As the science connecting pesticides to deleterious health and environmental effects continues to mount, the urgent need to transition to healthier agricultural and land management practices becomes stronger. Organic methods offer a holistic solution that combats the current crises of biodiversity, public health, and climate change. In promoting soil health and negating the need for petrochemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, organic practices also protect the health of all organisms and mitigate the promotion of ARGs, as shown in the scientific literature above.
Learn how you can take action each week through Action of the Week and sign up to receive action alerts and updates straight to your email. To help in Beyond Pesticides’ mission of creating an organic, pesticide-free world, get involved as a Parks Advocate through the Parks for a Sustainable Future program or consider making a contribution here.
All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.
Source:
Shi, J. et al. (2026) The Spread of Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Agricultural Environments: Pesticides Are a Neglected Driving Factor, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Available at: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jafc.6c01788.
