Super interesting Karolina! I only took a quick look at the model, but was wondering if it includes the human welfare outcomes? (I didn’t see it, but maybe I missed it.) For instance, we at IDinsight are working on a project based around shrimp farming, and a main pathway of the theory of change is improved tech → improved water quality → increased stocking density → increased farmer profits → increased consumption → increased human welfare. Given that development actors are focusing on this pathway, I think it would be important to take into account.
Hi Dan! Our CEA is built off the theory of change for this intervention that focuses on the animal welfare effects. We will likely add more cross-cause calculations to our CEA when the results of our work on moral weights by Rethink Priorities come back. Although human welfare doesn’t feature in our CEA, we do consider it in our report more broadly. We believe that this intervention could be a win-win, improving the lives of shrimp and of farmers. For example, an expert informed us that farmers would be keen to work with such an organization, since the intervention could help them improve their resilience to climate change.
On a more object level, based on GW’s research I would expect that there are more cost-effective interventions to increase household income that have less detrimental effects on animal welfare. We recommend that a new organization should avoid an increased stocking density, because we would expect high stocking densities to be overall net-negative from a species-neutral utilitarian framework. However, if it does increase slightly, I’m glad it would have a positive effect on farmers’ income.
Super interesting Karolina! I only took a quick look at the model, but was wondering if it includes the human welfare outcomes? (I didn’t see it, but maybe I missed it.) For instance, we at IDinsight are working on a project based around shrimp farming, and a main pathway of the theory of change is improved tech → improved water quality → increased stocking density → increased farmer profits → increased consumption → increased human welfare. Given that development actors are focusing on this pathway, I think it would be important to take into account.
Hi Dan! Our CEA is built off the theory of change for this intervention that focuses on the animal welfare effects. We will likely add more cross-cause calculations to our CEA when the results of our work on moral weights by Rethink Priorities come back. Although human welfare doesn’t feature in our CEA, we do consider it in our report more broadly. We believe that this intervention could be a win-win, improving the lives of shrimp and of farmers. For example, an expert informed us that farmers would be keen to work with such an organization, since the intervention could help them improve their resilience to climate change.
On a more object level, based on GW’s research I would expect that there are more cost-effective interventions to increase household income that have less detrimental effects on animal welfare. We recommend that a new organization should avoid an increased stocking density, because we would expect high stocking densities to be overall net-negative from a species-neutral utilitarian framework. However, if it does increase slightly, I’m glad it would have a positive effect on farmers’ income.