The 'sustainability gap' of US broiler chicken production: trade-offs between welfare, land use and consumption.

ABSTRACT: In 2018, over nine billion chickens were slaughtered in the United States. As the demand for chickens increases, so too have concerns regarding the welfare of the chickens in these systems and the damage such practices cause to the surrounding ecosystems. To address welfare concerns, there is large-scale interest in raising chickens on pasture and switching to slower-growing, higher-welfare breeds as soon as 2024. We created a box model of US chicken demographics to characterize aggregate broiler chicken welfare and land-use consequences at the country scale for US shifts to slower-growing chickens, housing with outdoor access, and pasture management. The US produces roughly 20 million metric tons of chicken meat annually. Maintaining this level of consumption entirely with a slower-growin

SUBMITTER: Chan I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9156924 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature