I speculate the welfare per time of a hen in organic egg production as a fraction of the welfare range of chickens equals the welfare of a random human as a fraction of the welfare range of humans. Consequently, for the welfare range just above, I get a welfare per time of a hen in organic egg production of 0.332 times that of a random human.
I know you say this is speculative, so I’m not holding you to actually thinking this is correct. However, I know this would probably be a hotly-contested claim by many. From a rights perspective, there’s an obvious disagreement, but even from a welfare/pain perspective, organic hens are still susceptible to keel bone fractures (though possibly to a slightly lesser extent). Because keel bone fractures play such a large role in the suffering of layer hens, I think it’s worth reconsidering this claim.
This could alter your conclusion pretty dramatically. For instance, if we say we assume the suffering of organic hens is only half the suffering of barn hens (I want to be clear I picked one half just to be easy and not because I think it’s correct—haven’t gone through the calculations here), then I calculate corporate campaigns are 2,247 times as cost-effective as buying organic eggs keeping everything else in this model the same.
This would imply even more variation in cost-effectiveness in animal welfare interventions. In case it wasn’t clear above, I am also not certain (or anywhere near so) of the difference in variation. I just wanted to point out this one particular area of high uncertainty is likely a major driver of this analysis.
Thanks for highlighting that, Blake! I estimated the welfare per time as a fraction of the welfare range for a hen in a conventional cage and barn egg production (cage-free aviary) are −3.83 and −1.17 times that of a random human. So my (speculative) assumption that the welfare per time as a fraction of the welfare range for a hen in organic egg production equals that of a random human implies the difference between the welfare per time of a hen in organic and barn egg production is 81.6 % (= (1 + 1.17)/(-1.17 + 3.83)) of the difference between the welfare per time of a hen in barn egg production and a conventional cage. In other words, I am (implicitly) assuming the improvement from going from barn to organic egg production is 81.6 % that from going from a conventional cage to barn egg production. This sounds reasonable to me, but it is hard to tell. It would be nice to have data from WFP.
There might be less variation in the cost-effectiveness of animal welfare interventions than in global health and development.
The variation in the cost-effectiveness of animal welfare interventions might be similar to that in global health and development.
There are uncertainties as you pointed out, and my original sentence was referring to a previous version of the post where I had estimated buying organic instead of barn eggs was 279 times as cost-effective as corporate campaigns (instead of 714 as published in the post).
I know you say this is speculative, so I’m not holding you to actually thinking this is correct. However, I know this would probably be a hotly-contested claim by many. From a rights perspective, there’s an obvious disagreement, but even from a welfare/pain perspective, organic hens are still susceptible to keel bone fractures (though possibly to a slightly lesser extent). Because keel bone fractures play such a large role in the suffering of layer hens, I think it’s worth reconsidering this claim.
This could alter your conclusion pretty dramatically. For instance, if we say we assume the suffering of organic hens is only half the suffering of barn hens (I want to be clear I picked one half just to be easy and not because I think it’s correct—haven’t gone through the calculations here), then I calculate corporate campaigns are 2,247 times as cost-effective as buying organic eggs keeping everything else in this model the same.
This would imply even more variation in cost-effectiveness in animal welfare interventions. In case it wasn’t clear above, I am also not certain (or anywhere near so) of the difference in variation. I just wanted to point out this one particular area of high uncertainty is likely a major driver of this analysis.
Thanks for highlighting that, Blake! I estimated the welfare per time as a fraction of the welfare range for a hen in a conventional cage and barn egg production (cage-free aviary) are −3.83 and −1.17 times that of a random human. So my (speculative) assumption that the welfare per time as a fraction of the welfare range for a hen in organic egg production equals that of a random human implies the difference between the welfare per time of a hen in organic and barn egg production is 81.6 % (= (1 + 1.17)/(-1.17 + 3.83)) of the difference between the welfare per time of a hen in barn egg production and a conventional cage. In other words, I am (implicitly) assuming the improvement from going from barn to organic egg production is 81.6 % that from going from a conventional cage to barn egg production. This sounds reasonable to me, but it is hard to tell. It would be nice to have data from WFP.
@Blake Hannagan, I have now updated the sentence above to:
There are uncertainties as you pointed out, and my original sentence was referring to a previous version of the post where I had estimated buying organic instead of barn eggs was 279 times as cost-effective as corporate campaigns (instead of 714 as published in the post).