Veterinary drugs in drinking water used for pharmaceutical treatments in breeding farms

Water is susceptible to be used for numerous purposes, including edible, both for humans and animals. In the food animal production, drinking water is frequently used as a way to carry out the most common pharmacological treatments. In these cases, there are many variables which could degrade drugs dissolved in this mean, even when properly arranged pharmaceutical formulations are used. In fact, although a product obtains a Marketing Authorization through appropriate laboratory studies both drug stability and solubility, on the other hand the solubility of the same drug in natural water used as a drinking water is not documented. In the present study has been evaluated the dissolution kinetics (at 0 hours and 24 hours) of products, having oxytetracycline and tylosin as active ingredient, used in drinking water samples in order to see how the different physical and chemical factors that characterize the drinking water may affect therapeutic efficacy. In fact, multiple factors, also of little relevance if individually considered, are able to adversely affect the pharmacological treatment carried out in drinking water.

Using national FADN database to describe Italian farms and arable fields. A comparison of sustainability level between organic versus conventional regimes.

The study defines a new farm classification and identifies the arable land management. These aspects and several indicators are taken into account to estimate the sustainability level of farms, for organic and conventional regimes. The data source is Italian Farm Account Data Network (RICA) for years 2007-2011, which samples structural and economical information. An environmental data has been added to the previous one to better describe the farm context. The new farm classification describes holding by general informations and farm structure. The general information are: adopted regime and farm location in terms of administrative region, slope and phyto-climatic zone. The farm structures describe the presence of main productive processes and land covers, which are recorded by FADN database. The farms, grouped by homogeneous farm structure or farm typology, are evaluated in terms of sustainability. The farm model MAD has been used to estimate a list of indicators. They describe especially environmental and economical areas of sustainability. Finally arable lands are taken into account to identify arable land managements and crop rotations. Each arable land has been classified by crop pattern. Then crop rotation management has been analysed by spatial and temporal approaches. The analysis reports a high variability inside regimes. The farm structure influences indicators level more than regimes, and it is not always possible to compare the two regimes. However some differences between organic and conventional agriculture have been found. Organic farm structures report different frequency and geographical location than conventional ones. Also different connections among arable lands and farm structures have been identified.