Genomic selection offers the possibility of breeding livestock with better health and welfare traits. Understanding this technology helps identify welfare-positive applications.
Genomic selection represents both a welfare risk and a welfare opportunity. The same powerful technology that has accelerated selection for extreme production traits — amplifying welfare problems in broilers and dairy cows — can, if objectives are broadened, select for animals with better health, longer lives, and reduced disease susceptibility. Nordic dairy cattle provide a proof of concept: breeding programs that explicitly weight health traits including udder health, fertility, and lameness have produced cows with better welfare outcomes without catastrophic production losses. The challenge is that welfare and health traits are harder to measure than production traits, and economic incentives currently favour production. Policy instruments — welfare-based payments, mandatory health reporting, and breeding objective requirements — can shift the balance.