Selective breeding has created animals whose genetics cause welfare problems — and new genomic selection tools offer the possibility of breeding for welfare alongside productivity.
Breeding decisions made decades ago continue to cause suffering in hundreds of millions of animals annually. Fast-growing broilers, wrinkled Merino sheep, high-yielding dairy cows — each represents a genetic legacy where productivity was prioritized over health. Modern genomic tools can reverse this trajectory — selecting for leg health, disease resistance, and behavioral traits that support welfare rather than compromising it. The welfare potential of genetic selection reform is enormous precisely because of the scale of production and the persistence of traits across generations.