Great post, Karthik! You may want to create an EA Forum sequence with the posts of the series.
Do you have any thoughts on preventing the increase in the consumption of farmed animals as a way of boosting sectoral transformation? Greater consumption of animals would create demand for greater agricultural production, so it naively seems like it may hinder sectoral transformation.
I don’t know how you would operationalize “prevent the increase in consumption of farmed animals”, so it’s hard to say. Also, meat substitutes are also produced by agriculture.
I don’t know how you would operationalize “prevent the increase in consumption of farmed animals”, so it’s hard to say. Also, meat substitutes are also produced by agriculture.
For example, by not subsidising the factory-farming industry, making producers internalise the harm inflicted to animals, and supporting the work of organisations like Animal Advocacy Africa.
Agreed! Do you have an idea about the economic cost of factory-farming as a fraction of gross world product? The EAT-Lancet diet has 12.2 % (= (153 + 30 + 62 + 19 + 40)/2500; see Table 1) of calories coming from animals, and, according to the results of 3 approaches, would decrease adult deaths by 21.7 % (= (0.19 + 0.224 + 0.236)/3; see Table 2). If this is so, even if “hindering structural transformation” is very far down the list of bad things about animal agriculture, it could still be up the list of good things to boost economic growth?
Great post, Karthik! You may want to create an EA Forum sequence with the posts of the series.
Do you have any thoughts on preventing the increase in the consumption of farmed animals as a way of boosting sectoral transformation? Greater consumption of animals would create demand for greater agricultural production, so it naively seems like it may hinder sectoral transformation.
How does making a sequence work?
I don’t know how you would operationalize “prevent the increase in consumption of farmed animals”, so it’s hard to say. Also, meat substitutes are also produced by agriculture.
I have never created one, but one can create one in the same menu used to create new posts:
Then I think you can just add a description and past posts to the sequence (see The Moral Weight Project Sequence for an example).
For example, by not subsidising the factory-farming industry, making producers internalise the harm inflicted to animals, and supporting the work of organisations like Animal Advocacy Africa.
I think those things are good, but “hindering structural transformation” is very far down the list of bad things about animal agriculture.
Agreed! Do you have an idea about the economic cost of factory-farming as a fraction of gross world product? The EAT-Lancet diet has 12.2 % (= (153 + 30 + 62 + 19 + 40)/2500; see Table 1) of calories coming from animals, and, according to the results of 3 approaches, would decrease adult deaths by 21.7 % (= (0.19 + 0.224 + 0.236)/3; see Table 2). If this is so, even if “hindering structural transformation” is very far down the list of bad things about animal agriculture, it could still be up the list of good things to boost economic growth?
I doubt it would be, for suspicious convergence reasons, but I’m not informed enough to know.