Antibiotic use creates antibiotic resistance. Claims and concerns suggest that modern animal agriculture is dependent on antibiotic usage to compensate for poor hygiene, poor health and poor management of animals. Regardless, there is still much debate in the scientific communities on how antibiotics in food animal production contribute to antibiotic resistance in humans. Many countries have increased antibiotic regulation in hopes of decreasing antibiotic usage to decrease antibiotic resistance. Producers and veterinarians will need to make a paradigm shift from antibiotic residue avoidance alone to prevention of both antibiotic residues and antibiotic resistance in our production units. The beef industry will need to develop antibiotic stewardship programs that monitor antibiotic usage on farms, antibiotic resistance in target pathogens and antibiotic resistance in foodborne pathogens. Complete removal of antibiotics from use in animal agriculture would not be prudent or practical for animal health and well-being. The antibiotics used in food animal medicine and important for human medicine recognized as potential resistance issues are macrolides, cephalosporins and fluoroquinolones. The most important foodborne pathogens in antibiotic resistance in human medicine are Salmonella, E. coli and Campylobacter species. The most common reasons for use of antibiotics in beef and dairy beef cattle production are bovine respiratory disease, neonatal calf scours, mastitis, foot rot and pink eye. The most common use of feed-grade antibiotics in beef cattle is prevention of liver abscesses and control of bovine respiratory disease. In the end, strategies that improve animal health will decrease antibiotic usage, which by theory will decrease antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic usage can be decreased in modern beef production systems if focus is applied to improvements in pre- and perinatal nutrition, neonatal calf housing and management, weaning calf management, marketing systems, transportation, receiving calf programs and nutritional management of finishing cattle.