Executive summary: Quantifying animal welfare in monetary terms reveals the vast scale of suffering in factory farming, with potential improvements in chicken welfare alone valued at up to $118 trillion annually—suggesting that farm animal welfare is one of the world’s most pressing ethical issues and should be integrated into cost-benefit analyses.
Key points:
Monetizing animal welfare: Assigning dollar values to animal welfare changes can help policymakers compare them against other policy considerations like climate change and economic growth.
Framework for valuation: The approach relies on four key inputs—human QALY value, number of affected animals, species-specific welfare potential, and the severity of suffering—using UK human QALY estimates and a 40% relative welfare potential for chickens.
Case study on UK chicken welfare labeling: A modest reform improving conditions for 10% of UK broilers could generate welfare benefits worth £44 billion annually—over 1,000 times greater than the costs considered in the official impact assessment.
Global scale of factory farming suffering: Extending improvements across all farmed chickens could yield benefits of $118 trillion per year, comparable to global GDP, with even higher estimates possible under certain assumptions.
Challenges and uncertainties: Debates remain on species-specific welfare scaling, whether human QALY values are appropriate, and how to handle states of suffering worse than death in calculations.
Policy implications: Including animal welfare in regulatory and corporate cost-benefit analyses could lead to more ethical decision-making and highlight the massive moral importance of farmed animal suffering.
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Executive summary: Quantifying animal welfare in monetary terms reveals the vast scale of suffering in factory farming, with potential improvements in chicken welfare alone valued at up to $118 trillion annually—suggesting that farm animal welfare is one of the world’s most pressing ethical issues and should be integrated into cost-benefit analyses.
Key points:
Monetizing animal welfare: Assigning dollar values to animal welfare changes can help policymakers compare them against other policy considerations like climate change and economic growth.
Framework for valuation: The approach relies on four key inputs—human QALY value, number of affected animals, species-specific welfare potential, and the severity of suffering—using UK human QALY estimates and a 40% relative welfare potential for chickens.
Case study on UK chicken welfare labeling: A modest reform improving conditions for 10% of UK broilers could generate welfare benefits worth £44 billion annually—over 1,000 times greater than the costs considered in the official impact assessment.
Global scale of factory farming suffering: Extending improvements across all farmed chickens could yield benefits of $118 trillion per year, comparable to global GDP, with even higher estimates possible under certain assumptions.
Challenges and uncertainties: Debates remain on species-specific welfare scaling, whether human QALY values are appropriate, and how to handle states of suffering worse than death in calculations.
Policy implications: Including animal welfare in regulatory and corporate cost-benefit analyses could lead to more ethical decision-making and highlight the massive moral importance of farmed animal suffering.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.