When the European Union banned the use of antibiotics as growth promoters on livestock farms in 2006, it seemed like a major breakthrough. Twenty years later, the problem is not only unresolved, but on a global scale it threatens to worsen significantly. This is said by a study conducted by the FAO and published in Nature Communications: without targeted interventions, the use of antibiotics on the world’s farms could increase by 30 percent by 2040, reaching more than 140,000 tons per year.
The starting numbers are already significant. In 2019, the study’s baseline year, global livestock farms consumed about 110,800 tons of antibiotics. The trend scenario projected by FAO researchers brings this figure to 131,000 tons in 2030 and over 143,000 in 2040. The change from baseline would be 19 percent and 29.5 percent, respectively.
Asia in the lead
Geographical differences are marked. Asia, with China in the lead, will remain by far the main area of consumption, with a share of around two-thirds of the world total. But it is Africa that will show the fastest growth, with an estimated 40.8 percent increase between 2019 and 2040, driven by the expansion of livestock production to meet the food demand of a rapidly growing population. North America and Europe, on the other hand, show minimal changes.
The researchers’ message is that the issue is not just health or regulatory, but productive: more efficient herds, with healthier animals and less subject to stress from overcrowding, naturally use fewer drugs. The study estimates that by optimizing livestock productivity, antibiotic use could drop to about 62 thousand tons in 2040-a 57 percent reduction from the baseline scenario. An ambitious goal, but technically attainable according to models developed by the FAO, provided we invest in disease prevention, surveillance systems and innovation in livestock management.
One million deaths a year
The issue is intertwined with one of the greatest health risks of the century: antimicrobial resistance, known by the acronym AMR. Whenever an animal is treated with an antibiotic, bacteria in the body undergo selective pressure that promotes the survival of resistant strains. These bacteria can then spread through the environment, the food chain, soil and water, eventually reaching humans. A study published in The Lancet in 2024 estimates that antibiotic resistance has caused at least one million deaths per year worldwide since 1990, with projections of more than 39 million deaths between 2026 and 2050.
In Europe, the situation is in many ways more encouraging. The EuropeanMedicines Agency (EMA) has reported a 25 percent drop in veterinary antibiotic sales between 2018 and 2023: from 118 to 88 milligrams per kilogram of estimated animal mass. This is a positive sign, bringing it closer to the Farm to Fork strategy’s goal of halving sales by 2030. The joint EFSA-ECDC report, published in early 2026, confirms concrete progress in several member countries, with a reduction in some bacterial resistance on farms and a strengthening of integrated surveillance under the One Health approach.
More antibiotics for animals than for humans
But the European picture is not uniform. In Campylobacter strains isolated from animals, resistance levels to ciprofloxacin are so high that they have made this antibiotic effectively no longer recommended for the treatment of human infections. And in the most recent data, some key indicators point to a slowdown in the improvements seen in previous years. Italy presents specific critical issues. With 105 milligrams of antibiotics sold per kilogram of animal mass, our country is second in Europe only to Cyprus. Third in absolute sales volumes, after Spain and Poland, despite the fact that Italy’s livestock industry is only fifth in total weight on the continent. According to the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA), in 2023 the quantities consumed in the two sectors were almost overlapping: 651 tons for veterinary use, 597 for human use.
