Reducing antibiotic use in pig farming through welfare-based approaches is both a public health imperative and a welfare opportunity, replacing prophylactic medication with health-promoting management.
Antibiotic stewardship welfare recognizes the positive relationship between reducing unnecessary antibiotic use and improving pig welfare outcomes. Prophylactic antibiotic use compensates for poor management conditions — crowding, inadequate biosecurity, suboptimal nutrition and stressful weaning — rather than addressing these welfare problems directly. Farms that achieve low antibiotic use through management improvements simultaneously achieve better welfare outcomes because the same management improvements that reduce disease pressure also improve pig welfare. This positive alignment between stewardship and welfare means that regulatory pressure reducing antibiotic use drives welfare improvement rather than compromising it. The welfare and public health case for ambitious antibiotic stewardship in pig farming are mutually reinforcing.