Thanks for writing this! It’s a great report. Some quick thoughts:
Even if the removal of subsidies caused a decrease in the number of local farms, you might worry that it increases the competitiveness of foreign animal products that may have worse welfare standards (of course, removing subsidies would be a notable policy win, and spur removals in other countries).
I agree that understanding the kinds of systems used and their prevalence seems key. However, I think it’s possible that we could define a lower bound of the number of animals in more intensive systems and pencil out whether an intervention seems worth it (there could still be better interventions at other parts of the intensification gradient). Getting better data sounds like it could be expensive is one concern I have.
On another note, I wonder if a better way to slow the expansion of intensive livestock production in new regions might be to restrict access to critical equipment and inputs. Low/middle income countries might not have the industries to produce cages, crates, slaughter equipment, antibiotics, etc, at scale, and so may import. Influencing policymakers in countries that supply these inputs may be more tractable. For instance, it seems the World Bank has been influenced by high-income countries to limit finance for fossil fuel projects.
Voters in high-income countries want action on moral issues, but often struggle to personally swallow the costs. Imposing the policies on other countries can therefore be an easy policy win for politicians. It wouldn’t surprise me if bans on exports of battery cages, gestation crates, antibiotics for use in livestock and such were reasonably tractable (note: not sure antibiotic bans would be good for welfare). Of course all this comes with the complexity of what it may do to wellbeing of humans in affected countries.
With regards to the first, I do agree that this would be a concern, and would be important to attempt to mitigate. Advocating for the reallocation of subsidies from animal agriculture to arable agriculture and/or the domestic production of alternative proteins, alongside carrying out public-facing messaging interventions could lead to a reduction in the level of animal production consumption and as such limit the extent to which demand for foreign animal products with poor welfare standards rises. Further, even if this cannot be directly mitigated, there are likely to be efforts to improve welfare standards in systems that are already industrialized, such as through the work of Animal Policy International and the Open Wing Alliance. Therefore, counterfactually, there may be a net reduction in animal suffering by preventing the industrialization of agriculture in a Sub-Saharan nation like Nigeria, even if this leads to a slight increase in the scale of an already large and industrialized system, where there is more likely to be efforts to improve welfare standards.
To your second point, this is a very interesting consideration—thank you. I agree that it is worth considering whether interventions at earlier points on the gradient of intensification. A priority would be to understand what drives and facilitates farms to transition along the gradient, and how long they tend to exist at each point, in the hope of identifying particularly significant steps that could be targeted.
For the last point, I would have suggested you discuss this with Moritz Stumpe, but I see that he has already got there! My main thought is that it would be critical to determine the distribution supply of battery cages across the nations that export them, to identify whether focusing policy efforts in a few key countries would be effective to meaningfully limit supply.
Have you seen this post on second-hand battery pages in Africa? Do you think an intervention focusing on this issue would be promising? If so, what kind of intervention? Should this be focused on the exporting or importing countries?
I would be curious to get your opinion on this, as we (Animal Advocacy Africa) are currently considering different strategies to recommend/pursue.
Thanks for your questions, Moritz! I hadn’t seen that post.
I don’t think I could tell you with confidence that such interventions would be promising. There are a lot of steps in the causal chain that I’m unsure about.
Looking at the supplementary material of this study, it seems like a lot of the second-hand cages from the EU’s ban may have been sold to countries that already almost only use cage-free systems (cross-referencing with OWID data numbers ). So perhaps many of second-hand cages are simply replacing old ones, rather than causing more chickens to end up in them (of course they could be used for new chickens farms ― don’t know).
Note that the OWID numbers are more recent, so it’s possible some of these countries increased their cage share as a result of those sales.
Still, it’s possible that more are now being sold to e.g. Nigeria, and that this is placing new chickens in cages. So the question is: how much does the lower cost of second hand cages induce more adoption? I would think some bit, but I find it hard to say.
How concentrated is the supply of second-hand cages? Would bans in a few exporting countries/companies restrict the supply a lot?
What systems are they transitioning from, and what are the improvements in benefits?
It also feels like this would maybe be more of delaying tactic, as producers may upgrade once they are wealthier or new cages are cheaper.
Also, from the spreadsheet you shared with me, it seems like a lot of the projected growth in chicken consumption is in Nigeria. The more the consumption growth is concentrated in one or a few countries, the more it may make sense to focus on their policies.
Sorry, I know this isn’t really an answer to your questions ― it’s hard to think about!
Thanks for writing this! It’s a great report. Some quick thoughts:
Even if the removal of subsidies caused a decrease in the number of local farms, you might worry that it increases the competitiveness of foreign animal products that may have worse welfare standards (of course, removing subsidies would be a notable policy win, and spur removals in other countries).
I agree that understanding the kinds of systems used and their prevalence seems key. However, I think it’s possible that we could define a lower bound of the number of animals in more intensive systems and pencil out whether an intervention seems worth it (there could still be better interventions at other parts of the intensification gradient). Getting better data sounds like it could be expensive is one concern I have.
On another note, I wonder if a better way to slow the expansion of intensive livestock production in new regions might be to restrict access to critical equipment and inputs. Low/middle income countries might not have the industries to produce cages, crates, slaughter equipment, antibiotics, etc, at scale, and so may import. Influencing policymakers in countries that supply these inputs may be more tractable. For instance, it seems the World Bank has been influenced by high-income countries to limit finance for fossil fuel projects.
Voters in high-income countries want action on moral issues, but often struggle to personally swallow the costs. Imposing the policies on other countries can therefore be an easy policy win for politicians. It wouldn’t surprise me if bans on exports of battery cages, gestation crates, antibiotics for use in livestock and such were reasonably tractable (note: not sure antibiotic bans would be good for welfare). Of course all this comes with the complexity of what it may do to wellbeing of humans in affected countries.
Thanks for your thoughts here!
With regards to the first, I do agree that this would be a concern, and would be important to attempt to mitigate. Advocating for the reallocation of subsidies from animal agriculture to arable agriculture and/or the domestic production of alternative proteins, alongside carrying out public-facing messaging interventions could lead to a reduction in the level of animal production consumption and as such limit the extent to which demand for foreign animal products with poor welfare standards rises. Further, even if this cannot be directly mitigated, there are likely to be efforts to improve welfare standards in systems that are already industrialized, such as through the work of Animal Policy International and the Open Wing Alliance. Therefore, counterfactually, there may be a net reduction in animal suffering by preventing the industrialization of agriculture in a Sub-Saharan nation like Nigeria, even if this leads to a slight increase in the scale of an already large and industrialized system, where there is more likely to be efforts to improve welfare standards.
To your second point, this is a very interesting consideration—thank you. I agree that it is worth considering whether interventions at earlier points on the gradient of intensification. A priority would be to understand what drives and facilitates farms to transition along the gradient, and how long they tend to exist at each point, in the hope of identifying particularly significant steps that could be targeted.
For the last point, I would have suggested you discuss this with Moritz Stumpe, but I see that he has already got there! My main thought is that it would be critical to determine the distribution supply of battery cages across the nations that export them, to identify whether focusing policy efforts in a few key countries would be effective to meaningfully limit supply.
Have you seen this post on second-hand battery pages in Africa? Do you think an intervention focusing on this issue would be promising? If so, what kind of intervention? Should this be focused on the exporting or importing countries?
I would be curious to get your opinion on this, as we (Animal Advocacy Africa) are currently considering different strategies to recommend/pursue.
Thank you!
Thanks for your questions, Moritz! I hadn’t seen that post.
I don’t think I could tell you with confidence that such interventions would be promising. There are a lot of steps in the causal chain that I’m unsure about.
Looking at the supplementary material of this study, it seems like a lot of the second-hand cages from the EU’s ban may have been sold to countries that already almost only use cage-free systems (cross-referencing with OWID data numbers ). So perhaps many of second-hand cages are simply replacing old ones, rather than causing more chickens to end up in them (of course they could be used for new chickens farms ― don’t know).
Note that the OWID numbers are more recent, so it’s possible some of these countries increased their cage share as a result of those sales.
Still, it’s possible that more are now being sold to e.g. Nigeria, and that this is placing new chickens in cages. So the question is: how much does the lower cost of second hand cages induce more adoption? I would think some bit, but I find it hard to say.
How concentrated is the supply of second-hand cages? Would bans in a few exporting countries/companies restrict the supply a lot?
What systems are they transitioning from, and what are the improvements in benefits?
It also feels like this would maybe be more of delaying tactic, as producers may upgrade once they are wealthier or new cages are cheaper.
Also, from the spreadsheet you shared with me, it seems like a lot of the projected growth in chicken consumption is in Nigeria. The more the consumption growth is concentrated in one or a few countries, the more it may make sense to focus on their policies.
Sorry, I know this isn’t really an answer to your questions ― it’s hard to think about!
Thanks for your inputs, this is great. I also didn’t expect you to have the perfect answer. It’s a very tricky problem.
I’ll incorporate these considerations in our research!