Disclosure: I am currently working at an organisation running cage-free campaigns.
I love this post! I really like the stepping stone model, it brings a lot of clarity to this debate. A few quick thoughts:
I think the following conclusion is too quick given the design of this study: “campaigning for farm animal welfare reforms and promoting animal welfare certified meat could in the long run result in a suboptimal state of continued animal suffering and exploitation.” I feel like a better statement would be “introduction of animal product options labelled as “higher welfare” could in the long run result in a suboptimal state of continued animal suffering and exploitation.”
People get really weird and unreliable when they talk about their consumption and morality. In the polls most people say over and over again that they wouldn’t buy cage-eggs and would be willing to pay higher prices for higher welfare products. But the sales data don’t reflect this at all, most people keep buying the cheapest option. It looks like people’s self-declared intentions on food and morality are not really helpful for predicting behaviour. But I think this stepping stone model can be used in designs that measure behaviour rather than self-declared intention
I believe that welfare campaigns(rather than certifications) mostly result in the removal of certain low welfare options rather than introduction of higher welfare options. For example, there haven’t been any welfare campaigns in Turkey until 2017. Nonetheless, as it is the case in most industries, animal product industry had product differentiation, and some products were “premium” even though there were no welfare campaigns at all. And the “standard” products were(and still are) advertised in a pretty positive way. For example this is the typical packaging of a cage-egg brand in Turkey:
For this reason a counterfactual analysis should also take it into account what would be the society’s perception of the industry without welfare campaigns. The options on the supermarket shelves before welfare campaigns: Eggs (these are cage eggs with the pictures of happy hens on the packaging) $2 Cage-free eggs $2,6 Organic eggs $3,5 Plant-based eggs $3,5
The options on the supermarket shelves after welfare campaigns: Eggs (these are cage-free eggs with the pictures of happy hens on the packaging) $2,6 Organic eggs $3,5 Plant-based eggs $3,5
Disclosure: I am currently working at an organisation running cage-free campaigns.
I love this post! I really like the stepping stone model, it brings a lot of clarity to this debate. A few quick thoughts:
I think the following conclusion is too quick given the design of this study: “campaigning for farm animal welfare reforms and promoting animal welfare certified meat could in the long run result in a suboptimal state of continued animal suffering and exploitation.” I feel like a better statement would be “introduction of animal product options labelled as “higher welfare” could in the long run result in a suboptimal state of continued animal suffering and exploitation.”
People get really weird and unreliable when they talk about their consumption and morality. In the polls most people say over and over again that they wouldn’t buy cage-eggs and would be willing to pay higher prices for higher welfare products. But the sales data don’t reflect this at all, most people keep buying the cheapest option. It looks like people’s self-declared intentions on food and morality are not really helpful for predicting behaviour. But I think this stepping stone model can be used in designs that measure behaviour rather than self-declared intention
I believe that welfare campaigns(rather than certifications) mostly result in the removal of certain low welfare options rather than introduction of higher welfare options. For example, there haven’t been any welfare campaigns in Turkey until 2017. Nonetheless, as it is the case in most industries, animal product industry had product differentiation, and some products were “premium” even though there were no welfare campaigns at all. And the “standard” products were(and still are) advertised in a pretty positive way. For example this is the typical packaging of a cage-egg brand in Turkey:
For this reason a counterfactual analysis should also take it into account what would be the society’s perception of the industry without welfare campaigns.
The options on the supermarket shelves before welfare campaigns:
Eggs (these are cage eggs with the pictures of happy hens on the packaging) $2
Cage-free eggs $2,6
Organic eggs $3,5
Plant-based eggs $3,5
The options on the supermarket shelves after welfare campaigns:
Eggs (these are cage-free eggs with the pictures of happy hens on the packaging) $2,6
Organic eggs $3,5
Plant-based eggs $3,5