Insights from animal welfare advocate Lewis Bollard suggest that cultivated meat faces a significant economic hurdle in competing with the established efficiency of factory farming, potentially taking "many decades away (at least)" to achieve cost parity. This perspective, shared by Dwarkesh Patel in a recent tweet, highlights the current economic dominance of industrial animal agriculture, even as advancements in animal welfare technologies offer glimmers of hope. Factory farms, particularly for broiler chickens, demonstrate remarkable efficiency, converting 1.38 kg of grain into an astonishing 1 kg of flesh.
The high efficiency of conventional meat production systems, honed over decades, presents a formidable barrier for emerging cultivated meat technologies. While the cultivated meat industry has seen significant investment, with over $2.5 billion attracted between 2021 and 2023, and projections from organizations like the Good Food Institute (GFI) and McKinsey suggesting price parity by 2030 for some products, challenges remain. These include the high costs of cell culture media and the complexities of large-scale bioreactor production, indicating that widespread economic competitiveness against cheap, conventionally farmed meat is a distant prospect.
Despite the economic realities of factory farming, which sees the number of land animals farmed globally increase annually, there are notable advancements in animal welfare. Innovations such as in-ovo sexing technology are poised to eliminate the culling of billions of male chicks each year by determining their sex within the egg. This technology is gaining traction, particularly in Europe where countries like Germany and France have already banned male chick culling.
Furthermore, corporate commitments to cage-free egg production have significantly improved the lives of millions of hens. Driven by consumer demand and legislative actions, the global shift towards cage-free systems has led to a dramatic increase in cage-free hens, with over 70% of the U.S. egg supply now cage-free, up from just 4% a decade ago. These initiatives demonstrate that progress in reducing animal suffering is achievable through technological innovation and corporate responsibility.
Lewis Bollard, who leads Open Philanthropy’s strategy for Farm Animal Welfare, emphasizes that while the scale of suffering in factory farming continues to grow, these targeted interventions offer a pathway for change. The ongoing efforts in animal welfare, alongside the long-term development of cultivated meat, point to a complex future for global food production where economic efficiency, technological innovation, and ethical considerations continue to intersect.