Page 75 - The Welfare of Cattle

52 the WeLfare of CattLe

table 7.1 Biotechnologies Used in animal Production (adapted from the Food and agriculture
Organization)
Genetics/Breeding Nutrition health
artificial insemination single-cell proteins Molecular diagnostics
Progesterone monitoring Probiotics and prebiotics dna vaccines
estrus synchronization recombinant somatotropins Marker vaccines
In vitro fertilization and embryo solid-state fermentation of Virus-vectored vaccines
transfer lignocellulosics
Molecular markers; marker- feed additives: amino acids, sterile insect technique (sIt)
assisted and genomic selection enzymes & probiotics
Cryopreservation Ionophores bioinformatics
semen and embryo sexing Molecular gut microbiology
Cloning silage additives (enzymes and
microbial inoculants)
Genetic engineering/transgenesis recombinant metabolic modifiers
Genome editing

Environment

Bearable Viable

Sustainable

Social Economic
Equitable

Figure 7.1 the three intersecting components of sustainability.

The best system from an environmental perspective may not conform to the best system from an
animal welfare perspective, although disagreements abound as to which metrics define “best” as
it relates to all three components. This exposes sustainability goal evaluation to subjective and
value-based interpretation. And often special interest groups apply political pressure based on their
ranking of one of the sustainability goals as particularly high. There are examples where groups
have placed 100% weighting on a single component of the sustainability equation, without regard or
consideration of the concomitant tradeoffs on the other aspects of sustainability.

aNIMaL WeLFare aSPeCtS OF GeNetIC eNGINeerING

Genetic engineering (GE) is a process in which scientists use recombinant DNA (rDNA)
technology to introduce desirable traits into an organism. Because the genetic code for all organ-
isms is made up of the same four nucleotide building blocks, this means that a gene encodes the
same protein whether it is made in an animal, a plant, or a microbe. Recombinant DNA (rDNA)