Reengineering Life
Scientists Are Building Cows to Resist Climate Change
Using gene editing to make heat-tolerant cows could result in ‘super calves’
Reengineering Life is a series from Future Human about the astonishing ways genetic technology is changing humanity and the world around us.
If we want to survive as the planet gets hotter, the animals we rely on for food will need to adapt to climate change. Some scientists think they can speed up that adaptation using gene editing.
One problem that farmers face is heat stress in dairy cattle, which happens when cows are exposed to high temperatures for too long. Cows that are heat stressed eat less, make less milk, and have a hard time conceiving. In hot temperatures with high humidity, heat stress can even cause death. In the United States, heat stress costs the dairy industry $900 million a year or more, and in the developing world, where small farmers rely on just a few animals for their livelihood, the impact can be devastating. As temperatures rise globally, heat stress is likely to only get worse.
“This is not only markedly reducing milk production but also affects the cows’ well-being and fertility,” Goetz Laible, PhD, an animal scientist at New Zealand’s AgResearch, a government-owned…
