The routine use of antibiotics in animal farming has contributed to the global antimicrobial resistance crisis, threatening both human health and animal welfare. Understanding this link reveals why reform of antibiotic use in agriculture is both a public health and animal welfare imperative.
The antimicrobial resistance crisis and animal welfare are causally linked. Dense, stressful, and unhygienic farming conditions create the disease pressure that drives antibiotic use. Reducing antibiotic use without improving underlying conditions causes welfare harm through increased disease and mortality. The most sustainable antibiotic reduction strategies focus on improving animal welfare — more space, better ventilation, enrichment, reduced stocking density — to reduce the infection pressure that drives prescription. Animals treated with antibiotics for infections they would not develop in better conditions represent preventable suffering. The regulatory move toward prescription-only antibiotics in EU and UK agriculture is also a welfare intervention, forcing farmers to address root causes rather than medicate through poor conditions.