Absolutely—as I’ve hopefully made clear above, shrimp paste is one of the biggest areas in the shrimp welfare space that we think another project could have an impact!
There are a couple of reasons why SWP is not working on it:
The contexts are very different
Our current focus projects all operate within the context of: whiteleg shrimps, in aquaculture, being globally exported/imported.
Shrimp paste on the other hand, is likely to be different on all counts: Japonicus shrimps, Wild-capture fisheries, domestic Southeast Asia/Southern China markets
We essentially see this as requiring a different organisation with specialised knowledge
We decided not to abandon whiteleg shrimps altogether to instead set up a “Shrimp Paste Project”
We felt much more sure that whiteleg shrimps would be tractable, and tractability was very important early on, as there were a lot of unknowns
We think the world needs both a Shrimp Welfare Project and a Shrimp Paste Project (and likely more!), so fully pivoting from one to form the other we didn’t think would make sense
We think our focus plays well to the co-founder’s (and now the wider teams) strengths—whereas a shrimp paste org would likely benefit from co-founders with different skills and deeper cultural insights
As a final note, I think it’s worth mentioning that Rethink Priorities’ initial research on shrimp welfare informed the Charity Entrepreneurship team and led to our creation. We’re super thankful to both and I’m really hopeful that RP’s latest work leads to similar outcomes :)
I’d also be curious for your reasoning on why you aren’t working on shrimp paste, if you have time!
Absolutely—as I’ve hopefully made clear above, shrimp paste is one of the biggest areas in the shrimp welfare space that we think another project could have an impact!
There are a couple of reasons why SWP is not working on it:
The contexts are very different
Our current focus projects all operate within the context of: whiteleg shrimps, in aquaculture, being globally exported/imported.
Shrimp paste on the other hand, is likely to be different on all counts: Japonicus shrimps, Wild-capture fisheries, domestic Southeast Asia/Southern China markets
We essentially see this as requiring a different organisation with specialised knowledge
We decided not to abandon whiteleg shrimps altogether to instead set up a “Shrimp Paste Project”
We felt much more sure that whiteleg shrimps would be tractable, and tractability was very important early on, as there were a lot of unknowns
We think the world needs both a Shrimp Welfare Project and a Shrimp Paste Project (and likely more!), so fully pivoting from one to form the other we didn’t think would make sense
We think our focus plays well to the co-founder’s (and now the wider teams) strengths—whereas a shrimp paste org would likely benefit from co-founders with different skills and deeper cultural insights
As a final note, I think it’s worth mentioning that Rethink Priorities’ initial research on shrimp welfare informed the Charity Entrepreneurship team and led to our creation. We’re super thankful to both and I’m really hopeful that RP’s latest work leads to similar outcomes :)