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In the era of globalization and speedy development, the fast-food industry thrives, and meat breeders are forced to comply with the growing demand for their products. Beef was the most often used meat for the restaurants due to its containing in burgers, however, in 2020, the tendency started to move in the direction of chicken consumption. Famous Fast Food chains such as Pizza Hut, Burger King, KFC, and McDonald’s registered a more than a 2% increase in the interest in chicken-based dishes (Smithers, 2020). Such growth in the worldwide demand means that the volume of raised poultry must be multiplied.
Different strategies are applied to increase the quantity of chicken meat without a severe influence on its quality. Farmers and manufacturers update the breeding, add supplements that force the chicken to grow bigger and faster, or apply the genetic modification to let the species born large enough to provide more meat (Herborn et al., 2020). The approaches provide fast-food chains with more meat, however, the animals’ welfare stays questionable due to the uncommon farming conditions. Appleby et al. (2014) claim that “animal welfare means how it is coping with the conditions in which it lives” (152). The welfare status is good when the species’ nutrition and safety are at a high level; they are free in behavioral approaches and do not feel pain or stress. This research aims to explore the reasons that make producers implement new attitudes towards raising chicken and how gene-editing affects the welfare of the species.
Gene Editing for Chicken: Issue or Innovation?
The common approach to growing bigger species is to feed them with food richer in nutrients or provide a larger amount. However, the high demand makes the manufacturers search for effective ways of growing chicken, which do not increase breeding components (Hartcher and Lum, 2020). Modern biological technologies make it possible to determine the genes responsible for the growth, size, and meat quality of species consumed by people worldwide. The average chicken raised in natural conditions needs at least three months to provide high-quality meat, yet the industrial demand cannot wait that long (Hartcher and Lum, 2020). The gene-edited species can grow into ready-to-be-consumed broilers in 4-6 weeks (Herborn et al., 2020). The chicken raised this quickly can seem to be not worth the attention, however, its welfare impacts the quality of meat it provides.
The innovative approaches allowed farmers to breed bigger poultry without any significant economic impact on their cost. However, the rising awareness about animal welfare forced the livestock producers to slow the phenotypical upgrades and take time to consider the behavioral, emotional, and safety factors in the life of chickens (Herborn, 2020). It turned out that innovation’s implementation can give producers more issues than positive outcomes. Gene-edited chicken require different farm conditions to grow in good welfare status, therefore it is necessary to update places where the animals live by providing different light and perches, improving sheds structure, and feeding attitudes.
The technology of Genetic Update in Poultry
There are multiple technologies implemented for gene editing of broiler chicken to increase the volume of meat and the speed of growth. One of the most popular and widely applied by meat manufacturers and farmers worldwide is the CRISPR/Cas9 technology. It is determined to modify phenotypes of chicken, considering the defined production goals, by generating mutations and cutting DNA in a certain manner (Chojnacka-Puchta and Sawicka, 2020). Chojnacka-Puchta and Sawicka (2020) state that “the mechanism of the CRISPR/Cas gene-editing technology developed from natural defense systems in bacteria against phage and plasmids” (p. 3). The editing process takes place in the embryos and sets the development sequences in chicken.
The technology also allows breeders to grow the disease-resistant chicken, improve its behavior, and pre-birth development. The Cas9 protein profoundly impacts DNA and eliminates cells that carry deviant genes or risks of low immunity or physical problems of species (Chojnacka-Puchta and Sawicka, 2020). When the same technology, like CRISPR/Cas, is applied to numerous genomes, it helps biologists explore the possible changes, gather statistical data, and improve the gene-editing approaches in the future. However, there is a lack of studies about animal welfare, and it is not clarified how the gene updates impact chickens’ safety in sheds, mood, and overall wellbeing.
Chicken Welfare
The standard way to identify a species’ welfare status is to apply the five freedoms concept to its conditions. The notion includes freedom from hunger and thirst, discomfort, pain, injury or disease, freedom to express normal behavior and to avoid fear and distress (Appleby et al., 2014). It is necessary to consider the farming conditions where the gene-edited species is being bred to assess the welfare status.
Chicken breed for industrial purposes tends to grow in overcrowded sheds where animals feel uncomfortable, and spread infections, the light that forces them to grow causes stress and fear, and their nutrition can be too artificial (Hartcher and Lum, 2020). Moreover, gene editions might have severe consequences for newborn broilers’ physical conditions: they can experience problems with vision, legs or wings movement, or brain defects (Hartcher and Lum, 2020). Although these issues do not impact the quality of meat, they evidently harm an animal’s welfare. Moreover, there are significant gaps in knowledge about the impact on the behavior of gene-edited chicken as it is difficult to determine how the modified species perceive stressful conditions.
Economic Factors Forcing to Implement Gene Editing
Fast-food chains have a significant role in the world’s economy due to their popularity in numerous countries. Each restaurant includes chicken dishes like nuggets, wings, burgers, rolls, and stripes. Moreover, the demand is this meat grows due to the lower price and better nutritional structure of such products compared to beef and pork (Brito et al., 2020). Fast-food chains such as McDonald’s and KFC have relatively low prices. Their market value pushes breeders and biologists to search for approaches to produce more meat without increasing the overall costs. For example, the KFC chain had 24,104 restaurants worldwide in 2019, and its meat breeders killed more than one billion chickens to fulfill the demand (Smithers, 2020). Moreover, the economic factor is the public health authority that promotes chicken as a better choice in a fast-food facility. The impact of gene-edited meat on humans is widely discussed, however, there is no particular knowledge, and producers only have to mark their goods as genetically modified.
Conclusion
The awareness about chicken’s welfare grown for the fast-food chains grows with the demand in the dishes containing its meat. Gene editing improved the breeding and increased the quantity of the products, while its impact on animals’ wellbeing. Fast food companies need to apply measures to decrease the possible harm to the chicken by funding the breeders to help them implement welfare improving practices. Humane killing techniques, behavioral changes examination, and providence of the best farming conditions close to the natural ones are the good steps toward better treatment of animals.
References
Appleby, M. C., D. M. Weary, and P. Sandøe. 2014. Dilemmas in Animal Welfare. CABI, Wallingford, UK.
Brito, L. F., H. R. Oliveira, B. R. McConn, A. P. Schinckel, A. Arrazola, J. N. Marchant-Forde, and J. S. Johnson. 2020. Large-scale phenotyping of livestock welfare in commercial production systems: A new frontier in animal breeding. Frontiers in Genetics, 11. Web.
Chojnacka-Puchta, L., and D. Sawicka. 2020. CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing in a chicken model: current approaches and applications. Journal of Applied Genetics. 61:221–229. Web.
Hartcher, K. M., and H. K. Lum. 2020. Genetic selection of broilers and welfare consequences: a review. World’s Poultry Science Journal. 76:154-167. Web.
Herborn, K. A., A. G. McElligott, M. A. Mitchell, V. Sandilands, B. Bradshaw, and L. Asher. 2020. Spectral entropy of early-life distress calls as an iceberg indicator of chicken welfare. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 17:20200086. Web.
Smithers, R. 2020. Fast food giants still ‘failing’ on chicken welfare, says report. The Guardian. Web.
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