Alternatives to pig castration: major producers in a number of countries have already implemented Improvest or similar approaches, e.g. JBS Brasil, producers in a number of Northern European countries. It’s crazy to me that US pig producers haven’t, despite, as you note, the FDA approval. Your explanation about the processing plants is interesting. I’ve heard other reasons from industry insiders: (1) the industry is afraid that consumers will view Improvest as a chemical additive, producing a yuk response like hormones, (2) Improvest costs more money and producers don’t care enough to pay that, and (3) farmers are afraid of injecting themselves and rendering themselves insterile (this sounds absurd, but came from a veterinarian who had spent years working in pig factory farms). I would like to see more advocates working on this issue. The challenge is how to prioritize it—I think existing groups have reasonably chosen to focus their scarce resources elsewhere—but there could be scope for a new group or individual advocates to work on it.
Economic research on plant-based products: there’s actually been quite a few economic papers on this lately. For example I recommend this new paper from Jayson Lusk and colleagues attempting to estimate the cross-price elasticity of demand for plant-based meats. That said, I think there’s scope for a lot more, including on questions like the ones you outlined. My sense is that most plant-based companies don’t have data analysts and aren’t reviewing much data beyond their own sales. They also probably aren’t reading econ journals, but I think it’s possible to get the most important results in front of them, e.g. via GFI, PBFA, and other groups that support the sector.
Wild animal fertility control: I’m happy to see researchers working on this. My sense is it’s mostly being trialed in situations where the alternative is for humans to kill the animals, often inhumanely, e.g. instead of killing elephants in South Africa, wild horses in the US midwest, rats in NYC subways, etc. In all those cases it seems worth pursuing. For many broader uses I think we need more research on the likely second-order effects. E.g. will reducing the population of X species just increase Y species lower in the food chain?
Thanks for the interesting questions Monica!
Alternatives to pig castration: major producers in a number of countries have already implemented Improvest or similar approaches, e.g. JBS Brasil, producers in a number of Northern European countries. It’s crazy to me that US pig producers haven’t, despite, as you note, the FDA approval. Your explanation about the processing plants is interesting. I’ve heard other reasons from industry insiders: (1) the industry is afraid that consumers will view Improvest as a chemical additive, producing a yuk response like hormones, (2) Improvest costs more money and producers don’t care enough to pay that, and (3) farmers are afraid of injecting themselves and rendering themselves insterile (this sounds absurd, but came from a veterinarian who had spent years working in pig factory farms). I would like to see more advocates working on this issue. The challenge is how to prioritize it—I think existing groups have reasonably chosen to focus their scarce resources elsewhere—but there could be scope for a new group or individual advocates to work on it.
Economic research on plant-based products: there’s actually been quite a few economic papers on this lately. For example I recommend this new paper from Jayson Lusk and colleagues attempting to estimate the cross-price elasticity of demand for plant-based meats. That said, I think there’s scope for a lot more, including on questions like the ones you outlined. My sense is that most plant-based companies don’t have data analysts and aren’t reviewing much data beyond their own sales. They also probably aren’t reading econ journals, but I think it’s possible to get the most important results in front of them, e.g. via GFI, PBFA, and other groups that support the sector.
Wild animal fertility control: I’m happy to see researchers working on this. My sense is it’s mostly being trialed in situations where the alternative is for humans to kill the animals, often inhumanely, e.g. instead of killing elephants in South Africa, wild horses in the US midwest, rats in NYC subways, etc. In all those cases it seems worth pursuing. For many broader uses I think we need more research on the likely second-order effects. E.g. will reducing the population of X species just increase Y species lower in the food chain?