Antibiotic overuse in animal agriculture drives antimicrobial resistance, creating a One Health crisis that harms both animal welfare and human health simultaneously.
The AMR crisis reveals a fundamental convergence between animal welfare and human health: the farming conditions that harm animals most — high density, stress, poor air quality — also create environments where antibiotics become necessary just to keep animals alive. Reforming these systems improves animal welfare while simultaneously reducing the antibiotic pressure driving resistance. Welfare improvements and antibiotic reduction are therefore complementary goals rather than competing priorities. Higher welfare farming systems demonstrably use fewer antibiotics and produce animals with better immune function.