Antibiotic Use in Farming and Animal Welfare

Routine antibiotic use in livestock farming is linked to welfare failures and contributes to the global antimicrobial resistance crisis.

Key Facts

Approximately 73% of global antibiotic use occurs in food animals, not humans
Routine prophylactic use — dosing healthy animals to prevent disease — is now banned in the EU
Animals given routine antibiotics often live in conditions that make disease inevitable without chemical support
Antibiotic-resistant infections in humans kill an estimated 700,000 people annually, with farming a major source
Farms that improve animal welfare through space, enrichment, and management reduce antibiotic dependency

Welfare Considerations

Routine antibiotic use in farming is welfare-revealing rather than welfare-protecting. When animals require antibiotics to survive standard farming conditions, those conditions are the welfare problem. The antibiotic is the symptom; the overcrowding, stress, and poor ventilation are the cause. Transitioning to higher-welfare farming systems — with better space allowances, enrichment, and disease monitoring — reduces antibiotic dependency while simultaneously improving animal wellbeing.

What You Can Do

Choose meat, poultry, and dairy from farms with verifiable low antibiotic use
Support the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics and similar campaigns
Advocate for global bans on prophylactic antibiotic use in livestock farming
Learn about the connection between farming conditions and antibiotic dependency
Reduce meat consumption to decrease demand for intensive production systems