How reducing antibiotic use in pig production affects animal welfare, disease management and the global antimicrobial resistance crisis.
The antibiotic reduction debate in pig farming is often framed as a conflict between animal welfare and public health, but this framing is misleading. The underlying issue is that intensive production systems that depend on routine antibiotic administration to maintain animal health are systems that have poor welfare built into their foundational design. Antibiotics in these contexts are compensating for overcrowding, stress, poor biosecurity and inadequate individual animal monitoring rather than treating genuine illness. Antibiotic reduction programs that succeed without welfare compromise do so by addressing these underlying husbandry deficiencies, thereby improving both animal welfare and the conditions that drive antimicrobial resistance. The welfare path and the public health path lead in the same direction.