The Broiler Boom: Scale, Trade, and Suffering

Chicken is now the world’s favorite meat—cheap, abundant, and traded across continents. But behind its meteoric rise lies a far more complicated story. In this episode, we unpack how decades of selective breeding engineered birds that grow faster and larger than ever, helping chicken conquer global markets while raising serious animal-welfare concerns: cramped sheds, chronic lameness, and heavy antibiotic use just to keep the system running. We explore the highly specialized international trade—from America’s white-meat obsession to China’s love of chicken feet—and the growing pushback from activists and regulators that’s forcing change in places like the EU. Yet for all the momentum around free-range and organic farming, one stubborn truth remains: most shoppers still choose the cheapest bird on the shelf. Can the industry evolve when the market itself resists reform?https://www.economist.com/international/2019/01/19/how-chicken-became-the-rich-worlds-most-popular-meat