Selective breeding has historically prioritised productivity over welfare, but a growing movement advocates for integrating animal welfare traits directly into breeding programmes for farm species.
The genetic legacy of decades of production-focused selection is a major ongoing welfare burden for billions of farm animals. The welfare problems of broiler chickens - leg disorders, heart failure, and chronic lameness - are not management failures but genetic realities that cannot be fully resolved without breed change. The same applies to extreme-production dairy breeds where physiological limits have been pushed beyond what health can sustain. The good news is that genomic tools now exist to reverse this trajectory relatively rapidly. Including welfare traits in national breeding objectives - longevity, leg health, disease resistance, and behavioural indicators of positive welfare - is technically feasible and economically viable. Political will and industry commitment are the primary barriers.