UK Pig Farmers Cut Antibiotic Use by 72% in a Decade

New data from the United Kingdom shows that antibiotic use in the country's pig sector has dropped by 72% over the past ten years, a change that responsible buyers and sellers of pork will want to note.

A steep fall over ten years

The figures come from the electronic Medicines Book (eMB), a shared recording system for UK pig farms that has now been running for ten years. The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), which manages the system, says the data shows how much the sector has changed since reporting began in 2015.

In 2025, antibiotic use fell by 10% compared with the previous year, dropping to 77.2 mg/PCU. That is the second lowest level ever recorded. The lowest was 72 mg/PCU in 2022. The recent fall came after two years of small increases, to 85 mg/PCU in 2023 and 86 mg/PCU in 2024.

To put the long-term change in context, use now stands at just over a quarter of the 2015 figure, which was 278 mg/PCU.

Here are the key numbers:

Total antibiotic use is down 72% since 2015, when eMB reporting started.
Use in 2025 was 77.2 mg/PCU, a 10% fall from 2024.
The 2015 baseline was 278 mg/PCU.
The system now collects data from more than 94% of UK pig production.

Why the numbers came down

The AHDB says the drop is not the result of simply withholding treatment. Instead, producers and vets have shifted to a prevention-led approach over the last decade, focused on better herd health, tighter biosecurity and improved day-to-day management.

Mandy Nevel, Head of Animal Health and Welfare at the AHDB, called the reduction a significant achievement. She said the aim has been to reduce the need for antibiotics in the first place, rather than to remove treatment where animals need it. The sector's guiding idea is to use antibiotics "as little as possible, but as much as necessary".

The shared data also helps farms compare their use with others, spot problem areas and track progress over time.

The zinc oxide test

One challenge came in 2022, when zinc oxide was withdrawn from use. It had been widely used to manage diarrhoea in newly weaned piglets, and there were fears that antibiotic use would climb again once it was gone. Use did rise slightly for a short period, but it never returned to earlier levels and has since fallen back. The AHDB says this shows the strength of the health systems now in place.

The most sensitive antibiotics stay very low

Use of the highest priority critically important antibiotics (HP-CIAs), which are also important in human medicine, remains very low in UK pigs. There was a small rise in 2025, from 0.009 to 0.012 mg/PCU. For comparison, the figure was close to 1 mg/PCU back in 2015, and most of that was colistin, which has not been recorded in recent years.

Keeping these particular antibiotics to a minimum is a shared goal across the industry, because it helps protect the medicines that matter most for treating people.

Why this matters for the meat trade

Antimicrobial resistance is a global concern, not only a farming one. When bacteria stop responding to common medicines, both animal and human health are put at risk. Reports in Europe have warned that overuse of antibiotics in farming is still driving resistance in some regions, which makes clear progress in one sector worth watching.

For buyers, sellers and procurement managers, antibiotic data is becoming a useful marker of animal health, welfare and responsible production. It also connects to trade, as rules on antimicrobial use in food-producing animals continue to shape which products can enter certain markets.

A few things to keep in mind:

Buyers and regulators are paying more attention to antibiotic use as a sourcing standard.
Low and well-documented antibiotic use can support animal health and welfare claims.
The main question ahead is whether these low levels can be held as disease pressures and market conditions keep changing.

The AHDB is clear that zero use is not the goal, since antibiotics are still needed to protect animal welfare when treatment is required. The challenge now is to keep animals healthy while making responsible use the normal way of working across the sector.