Time for a change: Antibiotics and agroecological transformation

In physics, nature abhors a vacuum – in ecology, nature abhors a monoculture. Yet, over the past decades agricultural systems have pushed ever harder towards this extreme, requiring ever-more external inputs to do so, with unintended consequences for both people and the environment. Antibiotics exemplify how such external inputs can have negative impacts both within and beyond farms, and on both the environment and society. When considered in conjunction with other inputs and management factors and their associated downstream consequences, the need to reimagine agriculture from a framework of agroecological principles is urgent.