Grand View Farms
As our project deals with alternatives to antibiotics as plasmid maintenance, we wanted to learn how and why others avoid using antibiotics in their industries. According to a 2013 Summary Report by the FDA on antimicrobial use, a large majority of antimicrobials in the us are used in food-producing animals. Because of this we decided to meet directly with farmers who choose to purposely avoid antibiotics. In addition to learning about their rationale for using alternatives, these trips also helped inform us of the potential applications of our work with the Hok-Sok system.
Grand View Farms is a certified organic farm in Maryland that does not administer sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics to their animals, uses no pesticides, and grows as few genetically modified crops as possible. As different animals consume different plants, they argued, rotating livestock through the land naturally maintains a healthy nutrient balance while suppressing the growth of harmful weeds. Due to this practice, the farmers at Grand View argued that administering antibiotics was not beneficial, since they naturally received all the nutrients required for good health and from the varied vegetation available for grazing.
Interestingly, the owners of Grand View Farms did not express any particular ethical or health concerns with GMO crops. Instead they informed us that, for a farm of their size, having an organic label made them more profitable and allows them to fill a market niche without directly competing with larger, more industrial scale operations. The allure of organically grown food and organically raised animals is a powerful marketing tool for the farm.
*One a side note, some hungry members of our team sampled the farms ribs, eggs, and vegetables, and according to them, the farms practices have only improved the taste of the food.*
Free range chickens roam Grand View Farms
The farmers' willingness to accept GMO crops demonstrated their interest in maintaining an antibiotic free operation. This helped us gain a greater understanding of the applications for our Hok-Sok plasmid maintenance system. If this could be used to maintain plasmids in lieu of antibiotics, then synthetic biology could benefit and partner with organizations like Grand View Farms without compromising the integrity of their ethical positions. Genetically modified bacteria which increase soil quality or the nutrient uptake of animals when ingested are just two examples of how synthetic biology could benefit farms, but the prior necessity of antibiotics prohibited their acceptance at places like Grand View. However, we knew that without antibiotics, plasmids could not be maintained within the cell for very long, leading to a highly variable level of expression. We thus made sure to ensure that our Hok-Sok system could not only maintain plasmids, but also ensure a consistent expression level.
