Thank you for writing this, Tom. I’ve split my comments in two, with another on the larger issue of individual v institutional interventions. Here I’ll focus on the particulars of cage-free commitments as a case study.
First, I’m not sure I follow the “Institutions are likely aiming for “good enough.”“ section: if an improvement in animal welfare is profitable, it should presumably happen without any advocacy. But I’m not sure it then follows that “the pressure of public opinion is needed to drive welfare beyond “good enough””.
Second, most corporate cage-free commitments don’t rely on consumer “willingness to pay” for cage-free eggs per se. Instead of asking people to directly choose cage-free over caged eggs, entire restaurant chains and states provide exclusively cage-free eggs, so the choice would have to be made at the restaurant or state level. It’s possible people would then choose not to buy certain products or patronize particular restaurants, but given the low price elasticity of eggs I wouldn’t expect this to be a large effect; it seems even less likely that people in Los Angeles or San Francisco would drive hours to obtain modestly cheaper eggs. I think this interpretation that corporate campaigns wins have been caused by the attitudes, intentions and behaviors of the public is likely where we disagree most. I agree there is likely some requisite threshold of public support, but it’s not clear this public support then causes change.
Third, I agree with the concern about holdouts. However, this is where the power of legislation, and, unless that holdout is a producer, secondary targeting can come in to play.
Fourth, at least where the industry has actually transitioned to cage-free (about 20% currently), I’m less concerned about “institutional backslide” as this would again require large capital investments to reinstall cages.
Fifth, I think we should not take the industry’s claims (like “In response to initially weak demand for cage-free eggs...”) at face value, and there are many possible reasons a particular producer might not remove cages. (The article offers some other explanations, like the wide price spread resulting from the post-avian influenza egg glut. But we should also consider more mundane possibilities like Rose Acres creditors weren’t willing to lend them more money—it certainly looks better to say there was insufficient consumer demand!) Since ~2015 the increase in share of cage-free eggs in the US market has been almost linear. So if consumer demand, rather than retailer/restaurant/first receiver, has been shifting conversions to cage-free, it’s not been apparent in overall production.
Lastly, I’m not sure which particular outcomes you’re referring to with gestation crate commitments, but the details of the pork industry and the commitments create some dissimilarities with the cage-free commitments.
Thank you for writing this, Tom. I’ve split my comments in two, with another on the larger issue of individual v institutional interventions. Here I’ll focus on the particulars of cage-free commitments as a case study.
First, I’m not sure I follow the “Institutions are likely aiming for “good enough.”“ section: if an improvement in animal welfare is profitable, it should presumably happen without any advocacy. But I’m not sure it then follows that “the pressure of public opinion is needed to drive welfare beyond “good enough””.
Second, most corporate cage-free commitments don’t rely on consumer “willingness to pay” for cage-free eggs per se. Instead of asking people to directly choose cage-free over caged eggs, entire restaurant chains and states provide exclusively cage-free eggs, so the choice would have to be made at the restaurant or state level. It’s possible people would then choose not to buy certain products or patronize particular restaurants, but given the low price elasticity of eggs I wouldn’t expect this to be a large effect; it seems even less likely that people in Los Angeles or San Francisco would drive hours to obtain modestly cheaper eggs. I think this interpretation that corporate campaigns wins have been caused by the attitudes, intentions and behaviors of the public is likely where we disagree most. I agree there is likely some requisite threshold of public support, but it’s not clear this public support then causes change.
Third, I agree with the concern about holdouts. However, this is where the power of legislation, and, unless that holdout is a producer, secondary targeting can come in to play.
Fourth, at least where the industry has actually transitioned to cage-free (about 20% currently), I’m less concerned about “institutional backslide” as this would again require large capital investments to reinstall cages.
Fifth, I think we should not take the industry’s claims (like “In response to initially weak demand for cage-free eggs...”) at face value, and there are many possible reasons a particular producer might not remove cages. (The article offers some other explanations, like the wide price spread resulting from the post-avian influenza egg glut. But we should also consider more mundane possibilities like Rose Acres creditors weren’t willing to lend them more money—it certainly looks better to say there was insufficient consumer demand!) Since ~2015 the increase in share of cage-free eggs in the US market has been almost linear. So if consumer demand, rather than retailer/restaurant/first receiver, has been shifting conversions to cage-free, it’s not been apparent in overall production.
Lastly, I’m not sure which particular outcomes you’re referring to with gestation crate commitments, but the details of the pork industry and the commitments create some dissimilarities with the cage-free commitments.