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“Lights out” poultry production and pandemic influenza

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Sparrow

    (Monash University)

  • Chris Degeling

    (University of Wollongong)

  • Christopher Mayes

    (Deakin University)

Abstract

Poultry production makes a substantial contribution to global food security, providing energy, protein, and essential micro-nutrients to humans. Modern intensive poultry farming systems are challenged by the evolution of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza strains. The presence of avian influenza in poultry flocks poses a significant risk of an avian origin influenza that is easily transmittable between human beings evolving. By reducing contact between humans and fowl, the use of automation in poultry production has the potential to improve biosecurity and thus reduce the risk of pandemic influenza. Many poultry facilities are already highly automated. The rapid rate of progress in robotics and AI suggests that “lights out”—fully automated—poultry production systems may soon be possible. In this paper we consider the ethical and policy issues that would be raised by lights-out poultry production. There is a strong animal and human welfare case for reducing the risk of pandemic influenza via increased use of automation. However, lights-out farming looks to be the ultimate endpoint of dynamics already present in industrial agriculture, which led to the dangers of zoonotic infection from animal agriculture in the first place. Whether nations should respond to that risk by doubling down on industrial models of animal production and embracing fully automated farms or by reconsidering the current model of animal agriculture altogether is, we suggest, both the most important, and the most difficult, question posed by the prospect of lights out farms.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Sparrow & Chris Degeling & Christopher Mayes, 2024. "“Lights out” poultry production and pandemic influenza," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 41(4), pages 1385-1391, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:41:y:2024:i:4:d:10.1007_s10460-024-10589-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-024-10589-w
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Clemens Driessen & Leonie Heutinck, 2015. "Cows desiring to be milked? Milking robots and the co-evolution of ethics and technology on Dutch dairy farms," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 32(1), pages 3-20, March.
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    3. Johnson, Kamina K. & Seeger, Riley M. & Marsh, Thomas L., 2016. "Local Economies and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 31(2), pages 1-9, May.
    4. Seeger, Riley M. & Hagerman, Amy D. & Johnson, Kamina K. & Pendell, Dustin L. & Marsh, Thomas L., 2021. "When poultry take a sick leave: Response costs for the 2014–2015 highly pathogenic avian influenza epidemic in the USA," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
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