'Pain-free' livestock farming

I came across this article today on the suggestion of genetically engineering livestock to not feel pain.

The method is fairly new and at this stage is unproven, so for the moment this thread can be more of a philosophical debate rather than scientific discussion.

The article was from a subscription service, but the study it is based on is found here.

Essentially, what I am asking is do you believe we should engineer farm animals which do not feel pain, and is physical pain an adequate measure of suffering and discontent?

Also, what are your opinions on artificially engineered meat (as Sythe has raised down the page) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat

Discuss.

 

Ideally yes, but this is much further off than the pain-removal suggestion. Besides, there needs to be the will for people to abandon the existing infrastructure and begin 'farming' in this way, which I don't think exists nor ever will. However, if you have some evidence to show that the cost will be 10% of current production rates I would be happy to see it.

I agree, and ideally there wouldn't be a need for farming and at all. But I just don't think there is the will (particularly in the developing world) to make such a vast change.

 

Does anyone else hold an opinion on this?

 

I think the slaughtering of these 'Beasts' should stop altogether. I think the pain-free bit is just a bonus for the beasts being slain. If I chop your head off, It's pretty much the same as me slowing chopping your limbs off, just a bit of a nicer way to go. Murder is murder, slaughter is slaughter, no matter how painless or insufferable it is.
Also, from your last opinion, I think that it would be a little weird, if not sickening to have meats being made from bits of everything, I doubt the "Ingredients" label would help much and I must say, The taste would be awful. Even tinned hotdogs arn't nice and they are around 65% real meat with extra additions and some sauce.
If I were to eat something that was 75% of that.. hotdog meat, I'd feel sick for a while afterwards. It would, atleast, take a little time getting used to, if that.

 

What i hate is how they genetically modify the animals for food nothing else. Such as this type of cow called belgian blues. This is what i see as cruel.

 

Please could you actually remove that image, it makes me sick. Also, I think this is cruel too, but if I'm not mistaken, this is a Myostatin Deficient Cow, which just means, despite looking disgusting, that it has extra large muscles. This is common in humans and sometimes makes 2 year old kids be able to lift their parents.

 

Oh yes, as Green and animal loving your method sounds.. Its not practical in this day and age, Firstly, The market for food would die, The lack of quality between food will be lost. And then there's the thousands of Farmers around the world that would literally become redundant. Sure, it would help develop ideas to cure world hunger, especially if you could literally grow meat out of a large warehouse quickly and efficiently, but at what loss?

I guess the main aspect of the whole situation is the Benefit/Risk Scale.

 

Those cows aren't genetically modified, at least not in the laboratory sense. They've been bred that way over many years, like all livestock farmed today, in order to produce a better yield.

 

Plenty of new technologies put people out of work... the horse industry really took a hit when cars were invented.

The market for food wouldn't die, if anything it would increase. Suddenly meat would be affordable to the billions to which it was previously out of reach.

 

Angelmax is right, it wouldn't die. Meat would become affordable and more people would be eating it for the affordability. It wouldn't be completely healthy but it would definitely cure the hunger side of it. There wouldn't be a reason to suspect the death of the market for food, the acceleration of people eating meats would actually cause the market to rocket, just not high enough for it to be too expensive in comparison to real meats. Even then I'd assume for a long while after that there would be 100% beef steaks still selling so people actually have a choice, meaning if the market doesn't rocket, it'll be unaffected at worst. The market for food will not die.

 

The businesses that supply the meat will lose out dearly, Alot of people in the world already eat meat, if they're now selling it at a fraction of the price (Or as Sythe stated, at the price of vegetables), They wouldnt be able to survive.

Oh and what could help differentiate the difference between meats? all types of steak would be standardized.

 

All types of steaks would taste different. Also, if people want a quick, cheap but not "The best" meal, they choose the "Vegetables" as it is put. If they want a nice, 100% beef steak, they choose the real deal but it will cost alot more. It'd all be based on what the person wants and what they can afford, kind of like it already is. The "Vegetables" would just be a cheap alternative to the expensive steak.

 

In-vitro meat is the future. Given a few decades, advances in genetic engineering will probably make the financial barriers to researching it managable.

Right now this research doesn't have much financial backing, despite the potential for increased efficiency.

I doubt it'll be mainstream soon though, if anything because the "unnatural equals wrong" fallacy is a commonly held prejudice.

 

If this is done, the obesity rate would increase. Look at Mcdonalds. Cheap,and it gets the job done. But looks at the side effects, obesity. I expect these new foods to have a lot of fat and other unhealthy ingredients.

 

The reason McDonalds, KFC and so on are so bad isn't necessarily because the meat is unhealthy, but because of the obscene amounts of salt and saturated fat hidden in every serving to give the empty meat some taste.

 

So they think they can kill animals without them feeling the pain???? I don't know about anyone on here but I do hunt, I've killed animals, trust me it's not easy to shoot something then slice it's throat.

On another hand, they also in slaughter houses use various means of slaughter one is stabbing them in the brain similar to pithing a frog for science class. To me this sounds crazy.

 

The article I was reading was suggesting it be possible to genetically engineer the animals not to feel pain.

 

GOOD IDEA

animals can feel pain, and its horrible that they have to just because we cant find our own food.

this definetly needs to be implemented