Animal Welfare and Antibiotic Growth Promoters

Antibiotics were historically used as growth promoters in livestock, improving feed conversion at welfare cost. Understanding this history and the ongoing global use of growth-promoting antibiotics informs current welfare and resistance advocacy.

Key Facts

Subtherapeutic antibiotic use as growth promoters was banned in the EU in 2006
Growth-promoting antibiotics work partly by suppressing low-grade gut inflammation that animals experience chronically in intensive systems
The EU ban demonstrated that antibiotic growth promoter removal without improving husbandry increased disease incidence
US ban on growth-promoting antibiotic uses in food animals took effect in 2017 under FDA Guidance 213
Many developing countries continue to permit growth-promoting antibiotic use including India, Brazil, and China
Global agricultural antibiotic use is predicted to increase 67% by 2030 driven by growth in middle-income countries
Alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters including probiotics and zinc oxide are being developed and deployed

Welfare Considerations

Antibiotic growth promoters represent the intersection of animal welfare, antimicrobial resistance, and farm productivity. The welfare dimension is dual: growth-promoting antibiotics suppressed low-grade infections in animals experiencing chronic health challenges from intensive housing, masking welfare problems rather than addressing them. Their removal without husbandry improvement increased disease and welfare harm, as the EU experience showed. This revealed that intensive housing conditions were causing chronic low-level infections that growth promoters were treating rather than the welfare conditions being acceptable. The global welfare goal requires both removal of growth-promoting antibiotics and improvement of the housing conditions that made them apparently necessary. Alternatives that improve gut health through nutrition and management represent the welfare-positive path forward.

What You Can Do

Support global campaigns for bans on antibiotic growth promoters in all producing countries
Advocate for antibiotic growth promoter removal to be accompanied by improved husbandry standards
Choose animal products from production systems certified as never using growth-promoting antibiotics
Engage with food companies requesting supply chain commitments to antibiotic growth promoter-free production
Support development of welfare-positive alternatives to growth-promoting antibiotics
Learn about the antibiotic growth promoter history to engage with the complexity of antimicrobial resistance in agriculture