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What we ingest can either sustain us or cause sickness. Recently, I discussed how food consumption influences the likelihood of colon cancer. However, what of agricultural practices?

Worldwide, we are witnessing the rise of cheap meat, primarily fueled by demand from a growing affluent population that finally can afford poultry and red meat, which were once unaffordable. Roughly 45% of increased worldwide demand is occurring in nations with rising economies such as India, China, Brazil, the Philippines and Indonesia. Poultry is expected to capture an greater portion of that expansion, estimated to increase by 21% by 2034, because it is relatively cheap, widely acceptable and needs fewer resources per kilogram than red meat. In the next decade, it is estimated that poultry will provide 45% of the protein consumed from animal-based foods.

But this has consequences. With scarce acreage and tight schedules, the approach in many countries has been to use antibiotics at scale. This is not only to address disease but also as a prophylactic to avoid sickness in overpopulated environments. Furthermore, administering antimicrobials makes farm animals to gain weight more rapidly, although scientists aren’t sure the precise reason. This situation means that, unlike their application in people—where antibiotics are typically prescribed to treat illness—their use in farming is far more common and indiscriminate. Studies monitoring their use suggest that 73% of all antibiotics distributed globally are used in animals raised for food.

This enormous overuse is leading to a increase in drug-resistant bacteria. As an illustration, colistin resistance, a “last-resort antibiotic”, first developed in E coli bacteria that then contaminated swine. E coli was later found in swine handlers. Only required are aeroplanes and global travel networks for these microbes to spread globally. And now, resistant strains have been identified not only in medical facilities in China but around the globe.

What does this mean for an individual waiting in a doctor’s office or a hospital in England or Scotland? It means that infections that were previously easily treatable—such as otitis, UTIs or post-operative infections—become untreatable even after a course of antimicrobials. It means that surgeries such as C-sections, joint surgeries and cancer therapies that rely on immune suppression all become riskier. And while novel antimicrobials are feasible to develop, the development process is lengthy and expensive. We must conserve the arsenal we currently possess.

The remedies to this problem can exclusively come from transforming worldwide agriculture. To be fair, the United Kingdom has made significant progress in reducing antimicrobial use in livestock. Sales of veterinary antimicrobials reared for food has declined by 59% since 2014. The use of colistin is now virtually nonexistent. The use of highest-priority antimicrobials has fallen to less than 0.5% of all veterinary antimicrobial distribution. Moreover, studies by several EU bodies indicated that after antimicrobial consumption in farming was reduced by almost 50% between 2014 and 2021, antibiotic resistance in E. coli bacteria across the bloc also began to decline.

However just concentrating on the UK or EU is a minor effort. If the large middle-income countries are included in discussions on how animal protein is produced, we remain just as vulnerable to antibiotic resistance. The challenge is that moving towards alternative farming methods takes more space and duration: making meat even more expensive in countries with large populations can quickly trigger public protests, political backlash and frustration. The medical necessity is evident, but this needs to be balanced with concerns over food security, financial factors and public demand.

Environmental researchers have long warned about the environmental costs of the present worldwide agricultural model, whether it’s greenhouse gases, species decline, or deforestation. But these effects often seem distant and abstract, especially for people struggling with financial strain or concerned with immediate healthcare access.

Antimicrobial resistance is concrete. Virtually all people has used antimicrobials at one time or another, and we can imagine what would occur if their infection-clearing effect was abruptly lost. Agriculture, medicine and the environment are all connected. How pig meat is farmed in China affects whether your child’s antibiotics work in Edinburgh. Whether a woman in Lagos survives a caesarean is tied to how poultry are raised in South America.

If we address these pervasive, world-spanning challenges, such as how our diet is sourced and how we utilize our existing drugs, we endanger something invaluable: the capacity to treat infections that we take for granted today.