Around a decade ago, the US implemented new rules to limit the widespread use of antibiotics in meat and dairy production, in an effort to combat the nation’s antibiotic resistance crisis. The regulations helped: Antibiotic sales for use on farms plunged by 43 percent from 2015 to 2017, and plateaued thereafter. But now, that progress appears to be backsliding. According to recently published data from the Food and Drug Administration, sales of antibiotics for use in livestock surged by an alarming 15.8 percent in 2024 from the previous year. The sudden increase worries the scientists I spoke with who track the issue. “It’s disappointing to see such a substantial increase,” Meghan Davis, a veterinarian and associate professor of environmental health and engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told me over email. “Antimicrobial use in food-producing animals matters for human health.” Antibiotics are a bedrock of modern medicine, used to treat common bacterial infections from strep throat to urinary tract infections to E.coli, and they’re a major reason why common infections are generally no longer extremely dangerous in the modern world. According to one estimate, antibiotics have increased average human life expectancy by over 20 years since the early 20th century.

But in the US and around the globe, most antibiotics aren’t used in human medicine, and instead are fed to farmed animals as a means to prevent and treat illness in unhygienic, overcrowded factory farms where disease is prevalent and spreads quickly. The meat industry’s dependence on antibiotics has, in turn, contributed to the rise of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotic treatment. When someone becomes infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, also known as “superbugs,” certain antibiotics are less effective — or entirely ineffective — making common infections harder to treat. The World Health Organization considers antimicrobial resistance to be “one of the top global public health and development threats.”

In 2019, it was responsible for an estimated 1.27 million deaths globally, with 35,000 of them in the US — and 2.8 million antimicrobial-resistant infections occur in the US each year. For a time, the US demonstrated it could make progress on the antibiotic resistance problem. Ten years ago, the livestock industry was even voluntarily pledging to reduce antibiotic use. But now that all appears to have been lip service — and regulators are doing little to rein in the industry’s overuse. Why did meat producers buy so many more antibiotics in 2024? There are only two legitimate reasons why livestock producers might have ramped up their antibiotic purchases in 2024: either they raised a lot more animals or they had to fight off a lot more diseases than usual. But neither explanation makes sense for 2024. Meat production grew by just 0.65 percent last year, and according to several experts I spoke with, there weren’t especially notable disease outbreaks that would explain the sharp increase. A spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services told me that “animal sectors experienced several health challenges in 2024,” pointing to the spread of the avian metapneumovirus in poultry birds and avian influenza, or bird flu, in poultry birds and dairy cattle. But Gail Hansen, an antimicrobial expert and former state public health veterinarian in Kansas, told me that these are viral infections, not bacterial, so using antibiotics to treat them does not make sense........read on    https://gnnhd.tv/news/52873/the-alarming-rise-in-antibiotic-use-by-the-meat-industry

But despite the dire outlook, the study says we could do an almost complete U-turn on this fateful scenario—if we revolutionize the way we eat and farm. That would hinge on four highly ambitious changes to our food system: we’d need to close yield gaps, make a global transition to healthier, plant-based diets, halve food loss and waste, and improve land use planning at the global scale, to reduce competition between food production and habitat protection. If we combined these changes to our food systems all at once, it would result in enormous land savings: by 2050 we’d reduce farmland by 3.4 million square kilometers, compared to 2010 levels. With this sustainable new agricultural regime, habitat lost to farmland would drop to a mere 1%, or less. Under that scenario, only 33 species globally would be expected to lose more than a quarter of their habitat—compared to the 1,280 that would be left compromised, if agriculture continued its unhindered spread into the future.                                                  

In some places, the bulk of this benefit could be brought about with just one key change. In sub-Saharan Africa for example, low yields are the main cause behind expanding farmland. So, ramping up yields in this region could be the swiftest way to curb habitat destruction. In wealthy nations, dietary shifts away from meat and dairy and towards more plant-based foods could be one of the most reliable ways to limit the expansion of livestock pasture, and therefore limit the destruction of habitat. In other words, healthier and more sustainable diets go hand-in-hand with reduced land use and greater biodiversity across the planet. And all the while, we’d still be able to produce enough food to feed humanity......read on        https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2021/01/if-we-drastically-revolutionize-the-way-we-eat-and-farm-habitat-lost-to-agriculture-would-drop-to-a-mere-1/.......AND.......  Is sustainable intensification an oxymoron? A 9-yr study says maybe not. A diverse cropping system in the US Corn Belt led to less nitrogen pollution—and an earthworm boom. Emma Bryce   https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2025/04/is-sustainable-intensification-an-oxymoron-a-9-yr-study-says-maybe-not/

Specific Climate Change Effects on Agriculture.......
Temperature Increases.......Rising temperatures can lead to several negative impacts. Heat stress reduces crop yields for many staples, including wheat, rice, and maize. Higher temperatures also increase evaporation rates, exacerbating drought conditions in already arid regions. In livestock production, heat stress reduces animal productivity, impacting milk yields and meat production. The geographical range suitable for certain crops and livestock breeds is also shifting, requiring farmers to adapt or relocate.

Altered Precipitation Patterns......Changes in rainfall patterns are disrupting traditional agricultural practices. Increased frequency and intensity of droughts in some regions are leading to widespread crop failures and water scarcity for irrigation. Conversely, increased flooding in other regions destroys crops, erodes soil, and contaminates water sources. Unpredictable rainfall patterns make it difficult for farmers to plan planting seasons and manage irrigation effectively.

Renewable Food - The Next Climate Domino to Fall? Financial Times10 Sept, 2025 Paul Gilding We are easily distracted by the short-term fluctuations of political and business trends in the corporate sustainability world. But beyond the noise, it’s the science and the economics that matter. Economics delivers the needed change – or the damage if we fail to act. On that basis, it seems likely that food and agriculture will be the next climategs is shifting to enable a renewable food system to take its place. In my recent paper published by the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership, I defined a renewable food system as one that could......Expand production to feed 9 billion + people, healthily and affordably.......Do so within a now inevitable rapidly changing climate and ecosystem.......Allow for the steadily growing needs of a larger, and wealthier population, for land........Deliver this in the context of possibly extreme geopolitical instability and climate migration that now also seems inevitable.......Continue doinig definitely.......read onhttps://www.pau lgilding.com/cockatoo-chronicles/renewablefoodnextclimatedomino