Welfare genomics is an emerging field that uses genetic tools to understand and improve the biological basis of animal wellbeing, stress resistance, and pain sensitivity.
Welfare genomics represents both a promising tool and a cautionary tale. The cautionary element is stark: decades of genetic selection for production traits have created animals with serious welfare problems - broiler chickens that cannot walk properly, high-yield dairy cows prone to mastitis, hyper-prolific sows with piglet mortality problems. The promising element is that the same tools can be redirected toward welfare goals: selecting for slower growth and stronger bone density in broilers, reduced pain sensitivity in animals used in research, or disease resistance in farmed fish. Welfare-focused genomic selection requires clear welfare outcome metrics, long-term commitment, and regulatory frameworks that treat welfare as a genuine breeding objective, not an afterthought.