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What we ingest can alternatively sustain us or make us ill. Not long ago, I wrote about how dietary habits influences the likelihood of colon cancer. However, what of food production?

Globally, we are witnessing the expansion of cheap meat, largely driven by demand from a growing affluent population that now has the means to purchase beef, pork and chicken, which were previously unaffordable. Roughly 45% of increased worldwide demand is occurring in nations with rising economies such as China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and the Philippines. Poultry is set to take an increasingly large share of that expansion, estimated to grow by 21% by 2034, since it is more affordable, culturally popular and needs less input per kilogram compared with red meat. In the next decade, it is projected that poultry will provide 45% of the protein eaten from all meat sources.

But this comes with costs. With limited land and tight schedules, the solution in many countries has been to use antibiotics at scale. This isn’t just to treat illness but also as a prophylactic to avoid sickness in crowded conditions. Furthermore, giving antibiotics makes farm animals to gain weight more rapidly, although scientists aren’t sure the precise reason. This situation means that, unlike their use for humans—where antimicrobials are almost always prescribed to combat infection—their application in agriculture is much more widespread and uncontrolled. Research tracking their consumption estimate that 73% of all antimicrobials sold worldwide are used in animals raised for food.

This enormous overuse is causing a rise in antibiotic-resistant pathogens. As an illustration, colistin resistance, a final-line treatment, first developed in E coli bacteria that subsequently infected pigs. The bacteria was afterwards found in swine handlers. Only required are aeroplanes and international transport for these pathogens to spread globally. Currently, colistin-resistant bacteria have been discovered not only in hospitals in China but around the globe.

How does this impact for someone waiting in a doctor’s office or a hospital in the UK? It means that infections that were once simple to cure—such as otitis, urinary tract infections or post-operative infections—become untreatable even after a course of antimicrobials. It implies that operations such as C-sections, hip replacements and cancer therapies that rely on immune suppression all become riskier. Although new antibiotics are feasible to create, the development process is lengthy and expensive. We have to conserve the tools we currently possess.

The remedies to this issue can exclusively come from changing global food production. Admittedly, the United Kingdom has made significant progress in reducing antimicrobial use in livestock. Distribution of veterinary antimicrobials reared for food has dropped by 59% over the past decade. The use of colistin is now virtually nonexistent. The employment of critically important antibiotics has dropped to less than 0.5% of all veterinary antimicrobial distribution. And, studies by several EU bodies suggested that after antimicrobial consumption in agriculture was cut by nearly half between 2014 and 2021, antibiotic resistance in E. coli bacteria across the bloc also started dropping.

However just concentrating on the United Kingdom or Europe is a minor effort. If the large middle-income countries are included in discussions on how animal protein is farmed, we remain just as susceptible to antibiotic resistance. The difficulty is that moving towards alternative farming methods takes additional land and time: increasing the cost of animal protein in highly populated nations can rapidly cause social unrest, governmental opposition and discontent. The medical necessity is evident, but this needs to be balanced with considerations of food security, economics and consumer expectations.

Environmental researchers have long warned about the ecological impacts of the current global food system, whether it’s methane emissions, species decline, or deforestation. But these effects often seem distant and theoretical, particularly for individuals struggling with cost-of-living pressures or worried about immediate healthcare access.

Antimicrobial resistance is tangible. Virtually all people has taken antibiotics at one time or another, and we can imagine what would happen if their infection-clearing effect was suddenly switched off. Food production, health and climate are all interlinked. How pork is farmed in China influences whether your offspring’s medication are effective in Edinburgh. Whether a woman in Nigeria recovers from a caesarean is tied to how chickens are farmed in Brazil.

If we confront these widespread, global issues, such as how our food is produced and how we utilize our current medications, we risk losing something invaluable: the capacity to treat infections that we take for granted today.