Lewis Bollard

And that wasn't enough.

So then we gave them antibiotics and other drugs.

At each step, there is a new solution that can't solve the fundamental underlying parts of the problem.

And sometimes it just makes it worse.

I think you're right.

The suffering is uneconomical at the level of an individual animal.

So the animals that we have selected for and the way we have treated them result in more of those animals dying, more of them having all kinds of welfare problems.

The problem is that it is collectively more efficient.

So if you can cram twice as many animals into a barn, it doesn't matter if 10% more of them die.

And so that's been the underlying model of this industry is that the reason welfare gets neglected is, yeah, it has like a slight cost, but the efficiency gains are so much greater.

So I agree we should try and find things to reverse that.

I mean, I am personally more optimistic about these kind of incremental reforms.

Like I think the average person listening to this is not thinking like, oh, yeah, I'm really pumped for like the brainless chickens to come along and like just persuade me.

But they're not pumped about the cultivated media, right?

No, sure.

But this is why you need a whole bunch of different approaches, right?

This is why, because there's no one solution that is going to satisfy everyone.

And what I would say on genetics is what feels way more achievable to me in the near term is to get rid of the genetic physical problems that ail these animals.

So for instance, we've bred these chickens to be mutants that collapse under their own weight.

We know that we can breed for far higher welfare birds that are still commercially viable,