Antibiotic stewardship in livestock farming has dual benefits: reducing antimicrobial resistance risk and, when combined with improved animal health management, can improve rather than reduce animal welfare.
The relationship between antibiotic stewardship and animal welfare is complex. Eliminating prophylactic antibiotics without addressing the disease-causing conditions that required them can result in more animals experiencing untreated infections. Genuine stewardship programs invest in the housing, nutrition, and management improvements that reduce disease incidence at source — which improves animal welfare directly. The Dutch experience demonstrates that this approach works in practice. Superficial stewardship that merely raises antibiotic treatment thresholds without improving root causes creates a false choice between antimicrobial resistance and animal welfare.