Thank you for this post! I gave a strong upvote because this claim has been growing in strength in animal advocacy communities, and I have often thought that we need to examine it and make sure it actually makes sense, or it damages our credibility.
I realise now that I’ve actually been sceptical about the claim ‘More than half of the antibiotics today are used for meat production’. This seems to be correct; this article says 73% of antimicrobials[1] sold are used in animals (which I think cites an article by Van Boeckel et al 2017, in Science, but I can’t access these articles). I also formerly believed this was predominantly a US issue, given the scale of poorly regulated factory farming there, but it’s actually China that is the biggest consumer of veterinary microbials, in both absolute and relative terms.
This paper suggests ‘user fees’, i.e. taxes, on veterinary antimicrobials. This seems like it could have very bad consequences on food prices, supply, and thus nutrition in low and middle-income countries, which the paper says have more elastic demand. Do you have views on this?
Additionally, one potential negative consequence of this narrative is that improved farm biosecurity might be a strong solution to prevent antibiotic resistance from crossing over to humans. And this would probably entail making farms more technologically sophisticated, more intensive, and bigger, which tends to be much worse for animals.
If taxation on vetinary antimicrobials increases the price of meat (both because of the need to pay for antimicrobials and the reduced growth rate if less is used), that seems strongly positive to me. Higher prices means less demand for meat means fewer animals in factory farms.
It’s not obvious to me that improved biosafety on factory farms would entail making them bigger; they’re already pretty enormous, and it’s not clear to me how the costs of biosafety would scale with size (this is a weak opinion, I wouldn’t be surprised to change it). But in any case, are smaller (but still very big) factory farms any worse for animals than even bigger factory farms? If I imagine doubling the size of a modern (enormous) chicken factory farm, that doesn’t obviously seem like it makes the lives of the chickens any more torturous than they already are.
Ah, I was thinking primarily about low and middle-income countries for both of these.
I am a big fan of ‘internalising the externalities’ of meat production by making prices higher in developed countries, but I think this becomes a more ethically and strategically complex tactic when we’re looking at places where people are already spending large proportions of their incomes on food, are in calorie deficits, etc.
You’re probably right that improving biosecurity on factory farms might not make a big difference to antibiotic resistance and animal welfare. I’m thinking of improving biosecurity on smaller farms / closing smaller farms and encouraging larger farms because of their better biosecurity, which is already happening in China (haven’t read this particular article but seems like an appropriate source).
Yeah, I agree that biosafety concerns leading to consolidation, and thus reducing animal welfare, is more of a concern in countries that are on the threshold of industrialising farming. Though I’d guess it would usually be a fairly minor effect compared to the general rising demand for meat as wealth increases, (a) that might not always be the case (China had a catastrophic pig pandemic recently, so I bet safety incentives there are very strong right now), and (b) given how ethically disastrous factory farms are, a small effect could be enough for the thing that caused it to be net bad. (I also haven’t read the article)
As far as people in poorer countries getting cheaper meat, I agree it becomes more complex, but I’m still pretty confident that fewer factory farms is robustly net-good. I don’t think meat is sufficiently important to a healthy diet that giving people more of it in exchange for torturing vast numbers of animals is a good trade-off anywhere, even instrumentally, and I’d also guess that if meat gets more expensive there are other dietary luxuries people can transition to on the margin that are only slightly less pleasant.
That’s just concerning the direct ethical effects, though. I can’t speak to strategic considerations.
Thanks a lot for your comments! I don’t have a strong view on what is the best way to reduce the use of antibiotics in agriculture, but it seems important to adapt to the specific context. I live in Sweden where it’s forbidden to use antibiotics for prophylactic or growth-purposes in agriculture, and that works well here, but in some countries a ban might be hard to enforce, or lead to corruption and unmonitored use, or else have very negative consequences for financially vulnerable farmers. I remember reading somewhere about some kind of insurance/compensation program for poor farmers that reduce or quit use of antibiotics, but I couldn’t find it right now – will look and see if I can and add a link.
When it comes to the adaptations in farming that could reduce risk (apart from reducing meat production), I would think it’s likely they would be related to improved animal welfare since you need to keep the animals in better conditions to prevent infections if you don’t want to prevent or treat them with antibiotics. To lessen the risk of transmission would be a matter of improved hygiene, which I don’t see as having obvious negative consequences.
In general I would think (without having thought a lot about possible scenarios) that higher meat prices should be a good thing, as long as there are other good alternatives for nutritious and affordable food that people choose instead. But I don’t know what the actual effects of such price changes are.
Thank you for this post! I gave a strong upvote because this claim has been growing in strength in animal advocacy communities, and I have often thought that we need to examine it and make sure it actually makes sense, or it damages our credibility.
I realise now that I’ve actually been sceptical about the claim ‘More than half of the antibiotics today are used for meat production’. This seems to be correct; this article says 73% of antimicrobials[1] sold are used in animals (which I think cites an article by Van Boeckel et al 2017, in Science, but I can’t access these articles). I also formerly believed this was predominantly a US issue, given the scale of poorly regulated factory farming there, but it’s actually China that is the biggest consumer of veterinary microbials, in both absolute and relative terms.
This paper suggests ‘user fees’, i.e. taxes, on veterinary antimicrobials. This seems like it could have very bad consequences on food prices, supply, and thus nutrition in low and middle-income countries, which the paper says have more elastic demand. Do you have views on this?
Additionally, one potential negative consequence of this narrative is that improved farm biosecurity might be a strong solution to prevent antibiotic resistance from crossing over to humans. And this would probably entail making farms more technologically sophisticated, more intensive, and bigger, which tends to be much worse for animals.
Not sure if the distinction between antimicrobials and antibiotics makes a big difference.
If taxation on vetinary antimicrobials increases the price of meat (both because of the need to pay for antimicrobials and the reduced growth rate if less is used), that seems strongly positive to me. Higher prices means less demand for meat means fewer animals in factory farms.
It’s not obvious to me that improved biosafety on factory farms would entail making them bigger; they’re already pretty enormous, and it’s not clear to me how the costs of biosafety would scale with size (this is a weak opinion, I wouldn’t be surprised to change it). But in any case, are smaller (but still very big) factory farms any worse for animals than even bigger factory farms? If I imagine doubling the size of a modern (enormous) chicken factory farm, that doesn’t obviously seem like it makes the lives of the chickens any more torturous than they already are.
Ah, I was thinking primarily about low and middle-income countries for both of these.
I am a big fan of ‘internalising the externalities’ of meat production by making prices higher in developed countries, but I think this becomes a more ethically and strategically complex tactic when we’re looking at places where people are already spending large proportions of their incomes on food, are in calorie deficits, etc.
You’re probably right that improving biosecurity on factory farms might not make a big difference to antibiotic resistance and animal welfare. I’m thinking of improving biosecurity on smaller farms / closing smaller farms and encouraging larger farms because of their better biosecurity, which is already happening in China (haven’t read this particular article but seems like an appropriate source).
Yeah, I agree that biosafety concerns leading to consolidation, and thus reducing animal welfare, is more of a concern in countries that are on the threshold of industrialising farming. Though I’d guess it would usually be a fairly minor effect compared to the general rising demand for meat as wealth increases, (a) that might not always be the case (China had a catastrophic pig pandemic recently, so I bet safety incentives there are very strong right now), and (b) given how ethically disastrous factory farms are, a small effect could be enough for the thing that caused it to be net bad. (I also haven’t read the article)
As far as people in poorer countries getting cheaper meat, I agree it becomes more complex, but I’m still pretty confident that fewer factory farms is robustly net-good. I don’t think meat is sufficiently important to a healthy diet that giving people more of it in exchange for torturing vast numbers of animals is a good trade-off anywhere, even instrumentally, and I’d also guess that if meat gets more expensive there are other dietary luxuries people can transition to on the margin that are only slightly less pleasant.
That’s just concerning the direct ethical effects, though. I can’t speak to strategic considerations.
Thanks a lot for your comments! I don’t have a strong view on what is the best way to reduce the use of antibiotics in agriculture, but it seems important to adapt to the specific context. I live in Sweden where it’s forbidden to use antibiotics for prophylactic or growth-purposes in agriculture, and that works well here, but in some countries a ban might be hard to enforce, or lead to corruption and unmonitored use, or else have very negative consequences for financially vulnerable farmers. I remember reading somewhere about some kind of insurance/compensation program for poor farmers that reduce or quit use of antibiotics, but I couldn’t find it right now – will look and see if I can and add a link.
When it comes to the adaptations in farming that could reduce risk (apart from reducing meat production), I would think it’s likely they would be related to improved animal welfare since you need to keep the animals in better conditions to prevent infections if you don’t want to prevent or treat them with antibiotics. To lessen the risk of transmission would be a matter of improved hygiene, which I don’t see as having obvious negative consequences.
In general I would think (without having thought a lot about possible scenarios) that higher meat prices should be a good thing, as long as there are other good alternatives for nutritious and affordable food that people choose instead. But I don’t know what the actual effects of such price changes are.