“I agree with Ellen that legislation / corporate standards are more promising.
I’ve asked if the breeders would accept $ to select on welfare, & the answer was no b/c it’s inversely correlated w/ productivity & they can only select on ~2 traits/generation.”
Dang. That makes sense, but it seems pretty grim. The second half of that argument is, “We can’t select for not-feeling-pain, because we need to spend all of our future genetic modification points on the chickens getting bigger and growing even faster.”
I’m kind of surprised that this argument isn’t at all about the weirdness of it. It’s purely pragmatic, from their standpoint. “Sure, we might be able to stop most of the chicken suffering, but that would increase costs by ~20% or so, so it’s a non-issue”
20% of the global cost of growing chickens is probably in the order of at least ~$20B, which is much more than the global economy is willing to spend on animal welfare.
As mentioned in the other comment, I think it’s extremely unlikely that there is a way to stop “most” of the chicken suffering while increasing costs by only ~20%.
Some estimate the better chicken commitment already increases costs by 20% (although there is no consensus on that, and factory farmers estimate 37.5%), and my understanding is that it doesn’t stop most of the suffering, but “just” reduces it a lot.
Has there been any discussion of improving chicken breeding using GWAS or similar?
Even if welfare is inversely correlated with productivity, I imagine there are at least a few gene variants which improve welfare without hurting productivity. E.g. gene variants which address health issues due to selective breeding.
Also how about legislation targeting the breeders? Can we have a law like: “Chickens cannot be bred for increased productivity unless they meet some welfare standard.”
Note that prohibiting breeding that causes suffering is different to encouraging breeding that lessens suffering, and that selective breeding is different to gene splicing, etc., which I think is what is typically meant by genetic modification.
Lewis Bollard:
“I agree with Ellen that legislation / corporate standards are more promising. I’ve asked if the breeders would accept $ to select on welfare, & the answer was no b/c it’s inversely correlated w/ productivity & they can only select on ~2 traits/generation.”
Dang. That makes sense, but it seems pretty grim. The second half of that argument is, “We can’t select for not-feeling-pain, because we need to spend all of our future genetic modification points on the chickens getting bigger and growing even faster.”
I’m kind of surprised that this argument isn’t at all about the weirdness of it. It’s purely pragmatic, from their standpoint. “Sure, we might be able to stop most of the chicken suffering, but that would increase costs by ~20% or so, so it’s a non-issue”
20% of the global cost of growing chickens is probably in the order of at least ~$20B, which is much more than the global economy is willing to spend on animal welfare.
As mentioned in the other comment, I think it’s extremely unlikely that there is a way to stop “most” of the chicken suffering while increasing costs by only ~20%.
Some estimate the better chicken commitment already increases costs by 20% (although there is no consensus on that, and factory farmers estimate 37.5%), and my understanding is that it doesn’t stop most of the suffering, but “just” reduces it a lot.
Has there been any discussion of improving chicken breeding using GWAS or similar?
Even if welfare is inversely correlated with productivity, I imagine there are at least a few gene variants which improve welfare without hurting productivity. E.g. gene variants which address health issues due to selective breeding.
Also how about legislation targeting the breeders? Can we have a law like: “Chickens cannot be bred for increased productivity unless they meet some welfare standard.”
England prohibits “breeding procedures which cause, or are likely to cause, suffering or injury to any of the animals concerned”. Defra claim Frankenchickens meet this standard and THLUK are challenging that decision in court.
Note that prohibiting breeding that causes suffering is different to encouraging breeding that lessens suffering, and that selective breeding is different to gene splicing, etc., which I think is what is typically meant by genetic modification.