Agriculture and One Health

Welcome to the University of Delaware, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources’ One Health website. As you have seen described here, One Health is the approach to health that considers the triad of animal, human and environmental health as an integrated whole.

Historically, One Health has been predominantly the purview of veterinary and human medicine, which may prompt the question, what does agriculture have to do with One Health? While agricultural science did not lead to the formation of One Health, no other human endeavor impacts the triad more than agriculture. Billions of hectares of land and billions of animals go toward feeding the human population every year. Agriculture done right prevents disease.

Agriculture truly is and should be the center of a One Health perspective.  

A number of recent global events should remove any doubt that a One Health perspective is needed now more than ever, and food systems have been under-appreciated for decades. Just consider the past few years:

• As will be discussed in a subsequent posting, though we do not know how SARS-CoV-2 breached the species barrier between bats and humans, it is possible it involved food systems.
• The public health and political response to the COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased food insecurity for tens if not hundreds of millions of people around the world.
• The war in Ukraine has disrupted the free flow of agriculture products from two of the world’s major food producers, this will result in famine.
• An ill advised shift away from modern agricultural practices decimated agricultural production and exacerbated a balance of payment situation that sapped a major source of foreign currency from Sri Lanka, contributing to economic collapse.

In all of the above situations, the importance of agriculture and food systems was underappreciated ahead of time, and consideration of first, second, and third order consequences were ignored. This is why the One Health perspective is so important, it requires a consideration of animals, humans AND the environment and within that consideration the consequences of action or inaction on EACH of the parts of the triad is required. 

In the next 5-10 years agriculture will once again take its place in the American consciousness as one of the most important human activities. Our goal in CANR is to ensure that this rediscovery of agriculture is science-based and takes a One Health perspective.