Co-founder of Shrimp Welfare Project, which aims to reduce the suffering of billions of farmed shrimps
Aaron Boddyđ¸
Karma: 1,359
Hey Vasco! Yeah I think Iâd advocate for more aquatic animal orgs at the margin (though I do think that funding in this space is increasing, so this trade-off might not be super clear cut anyway).
I liked Karolinaâs response to a similar question during the recent EA Animal Welfare Funds AMA and I usually give a similar response when people ask me about funding SWPâI think new orgs in this space often have a really high Expected Value, so depending on your risk-tolerance for funding I think they represent a really exciting opportunity.
I think SWP itself might be quite a good example of thisâwe came out of the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program with a seed grant of $100k. We then got a couple of grants from EAAWF ($45k) and ACE Movement Grants ($40k) as well as some smaller donors here and there. I think this got us to the point where we had figured out our main intervention, could secure some Open Philanthropy funding, and start to have impact.
I think itâs very possible SWP has only found a local maximum and that there are other opportunities out there that could help us get closer to the global maximum in this space. So if I was a donor trying to allocate ~$200k, I would put serious effort into looking for new orgs/âopportunities that I thought had a good chance of being more cost-effective than SWP (I think AIM have previously estimated that 20% of their charities could become field-leadingâIâm not sure if this is generalisable outside of AIM, but might be a useful baserate for considering opportunities).
Aaron from Shrimp Welfare Project here :)
I just wanted to add that FWI likely significantly accelerated SWPâs impact, probably by more than a year (maybe longer, itâs hard to know for sure).
For example, two of our big pivots towards what is now our primary intervention are a direct result of engaging with FWI:
In our first month, having a discussion with Haven who convinced us to take demand-side work seriously, rather than a purely supply-side approach as we had initially planned.
About six months in, when we were able to visit India (we were delayed due to COVID) and saw a shrimp harvest for the first time, which convinced us to think much more about pre-slaughter stunning (we could have visited India without the help of FWI, but being able to benefit from their living situation, and their on-the-ground expertise while we were there was hugely valuable).
Additionally, our first hire in India was through a recommendation by FWI, and has been instrumental to our farmer engagement program in India (likewise, I donât think he would have heard of SWP, or trusted us enough to leave his previous job for SWP, if not for the recommendation from FWI).
There are probably a bunch of other examples I could give, and similar to Tom I want to highlight my own biases here (SWP and FWI are very close friends, professionally and personally), but it seems hard to separate the impact of individual organisations from the wider ecosystem they operate in (at least for animal advocacy, I donât really have experience with other cause areas).
I would probably model it with https://ââwww.getguesstimate.com/ââ to give a range of uncertainty in the numbers. But yeah it wouldnât surprise me if the number was ~100%
Something in the ballpark of a few hundred thousand dollars.
This is a slightly tricky question to answer as:
We donât have a specific funding gap for 2025
i.e. our overheads are covered, as well as the costs for our target number of stunners
However, it could be the case that we get unexpected momentum next year, and can give away more stunners than weâd planned for
Weâve run into this situation before, where we had an unexpected string of wins, and had to rapidly fundraise in order to pay for them
So effectively weâre trying to build up our war chest so that weâre able to deploy it when the opportunities present themselves
So all of that doesnât lead me to be confident in saying any specific number, but I think something in the ballpark of a few hundred thousand dollars seems reasonable
Thanks Angelina :)
In our Guesstimate model, the overhead costs to date are included in the bottom right (something like cell L15 if it were a spreadsheet) - between the total cost of the stunners, and the final overall cost titled SWP Total Expenses.So the cost-effectiveness we report on our website factors in this cost, but when weâre fundraising for marginal dollars, we often try to highlight the fact that marginal dollars are more cost-effective than the average dollar (which is unusual for an animal charity). But I agree that this is something of a judgement call, and the complex reality of marginal dollars is somewhere between those two numbers.
Hope thatâs helpful!
Good question Michael!
Our current estimate is that weâll buy 50 stunners, but Iâd take that number with a huge pinch of salt, as there are a number of factors that could influence how many stunners we ultimately need to buy (probably the most important one is that we want to focus on getting retailer commitments as our goal going forward (rather than a specific number of stunners), and itâs not super clear to us what the adoption curve will look like for retail commitments as we work with retailers outside of the UK).
We regularly evaluate our HSI program, and update our estimates if we think itâs appropriate. It could turn out we need fewer than 50, it could turn out that we need more. I guess a message I would like to emphasise is that we will use marginal funding in the most cost-effective way we can, whether or not the marginal funding goes towards a specific stunner, or towards more general corporate engagment work to reach commitments.
Answering on behalf of Shrimp Welfare Project :)
Our overheads (i.e. salaries, travel/âconferences), and program costs for our work in India are currently covered by grants until the end of 2026. This means that any additional funds are put towards our Humane Slaughter Initiative. (For context, our secured grants also cover the cost of some stunners, but HSI as a program is still able to absorb more funding.)
Each stunner costs us $55k and we ask the producers we work with to commit to stunning a minimum of 120 million shrimps per annum. This results in a cost-effectiveness of ~2,000+ shrimps helped /â $ /â year (i.e. our marginal impact of additional dollars is higher than our historical cost-effectiveness).
Although weâre very excited by how cost-effective it is in its own right, ultimately we want to catalyse industry-wide adoption by deploying stunners to the early adopters in order to build towards a tipping point that achieves critical mass. In other words, over the next few years we want to take the HSI program from Growth to Scale.
Weâve had some good indications recently that HSI does contribute to âlocking-inâ industry adoption, with Tesco and Sainsburyâs recently publishing welfare policies, building on similar wins in the past (such as M&S and Albert Heijn).
If anyone wants to reach out to me directly, you can contact me at aaron@shrimpwelfareproject.org. You can also donate to SWP through our website, or book a meeting with me via this link.
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Thanks Angelina :) Yeah just to confirm The Navigation Fund (TNF) plans to fill SWPâs funding gap left by OP, at least through the end of 2026. Our OP grant was set to end at the end of 2025, so the TNF commitment equates to approximately 1 year of funding for us.
OP is SWPâs biggest funder, representing 80-90% of our overall funding. So this grant covers SWPâs overhead expenses, in addition to a few electrical stunners.
Weâre keen on diversifying our funding, in order to not continue relying on a single funder, as well as to raise more money in order to deploy more stunners through our Humane Slaughter Initiative (SWP is in the unusual position in the animal movement that marginal dollars are often more impactful than the average dollar donated to SWPâas this funding can go directly to expanding the HSI program).
Hey Vasco! Interesting question, unfortunately I donât know the answer...
My sense is no, as you say, the intervention increases costs without an increase in productivity for the producers. But ultimately an incentive here is continued market access, which Iâm sure an economist could model whether or not this could lead to an increase in the number of shrimps (over time).
Another point to emphasise thoughâitâs my sense that the intervention should be modelled as electrical stunning replaces air asphyxiation, rather than (perfectly implemented) ice slurry. Ice slurry slaughter is just a very difficult thing to do correctly in practice (and Iâve not seen it happen) - as even if at some point the shrimps are submerged in ice for a short period of time, itâs often not long enough to kill them (~30seconds).
Hey Angelina! Sureâhappy to answer :)
Yes we were affected by the Good Ventures announcement, and our current funding update is actually very similar to that of Wild Animal Initiative, as in:The Navigation Fund (TNF) plans to fill SWPâs funding gap left by OP, at least through the end of 2026.
Weâre keen on diversifying our funding, so as not to continue relying on a single funder
However we differ in that our budget is smaller than that of WAI, and the majority of it is put toward a single program (HSI)
Thanks so much Vasco for your work on this! As with MHR in the past, we really appreciate folks doing in-depth analyses like this, and are very appreciative of the interest in our work :)
In the spirit of this weekâs Forum theme, I wanted to provide some more context regarding SWPâs room for more funding.
Our overheads (i.e. salaries, travel/âconferences) and program costs for the India sludge removal work, are currently covered by grants until the end of 2026. Meaning that any additional funds are put towards HSI. (For context, our secured grants do also cover the cost of some stunners, but HSI as a program is still able to absorb more funding).
Each stunner costs us $55k and we ask the producers we work with to commit to stunning a minimum of 120 million shrimps per annum. This results in a cost-effectiveness of ~2,000+ shrimps helped /â $ /â year (i.e. our marginal impact of additional dollars is higher than our historical cost-effectiveness).
Weâre having our annual team retreat (which we call âShrimposiumâ) next week, during which we hope to map out how we can deploy stunners in such a way as to catalyse a tipping point so that pre-slaughter stunning becomes the industry standard.
Weâve had some good indications recently that HSI does contribute to âlocking-inâ industry adoption, with Tesco and Sainsburyâs recently publishing welfare policies, building on similar wins in the past (such as M&S and Albert Heijn).
This has always been the Theory of Change for the HSI project. Although weâre very excited by how cost-effective it is in its own right, ultimately we want to catalyse industry-wide adoptionâdeploying stunners to the early adopters in order to build towards a tipping point that achieves critical mass. In other words, over the next few years we want to take the HSI program from Growth to Scale.
I would be surprised if post-Shrimposium our targets regarding HSI required less funding than our current projections. In other words, though I donât currently have an exact sense of our room for more funding, Iâm confident SWP is in a position to absorb significantly more funding to support our HSI work.
If anyone wants to reach out to me directly, you can contact me at aaron@shrimpwelfareproject.org. You can also donate to SWP through our website, or book a meeting with me via this link.
While hustling might work for some people (at least for a while), I have certain reservations about the start-up hustle culture. More often than not, it makes people focus too much on the hours and intensity of their work instead of the value they create. This regularly leads to burnout among founders, and the image of the stereotypical hustling founder might discourage people from pursuing entrepreneurship when they would have made great founders.
I really liked this section :)
I think this idea of a hustling co-founder means I sometimes have a hard time communicating how âchillâ my life often looks day-to-day
Absolutelyâas Iâve 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/âimported.
Shrimp paste on the other hand, is likely to be different on all counts: Japonicus shrimps, Wild-capture fisheries, domestic Southeast Asia/âSouthern 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 âShrimp Paste Projectâ
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 didnât think would make sense
We think our focus plays well to the co-founderâs (and now the wider teams) strengthsâwhereas a shrimp paste org would likely benefit from co-founders with different skills and deeper cultural insights
As a final note, I think itâs worth mentioning that Rethink Prioritiesâ initial research on shrimp welfare informed the Charity Entrepreneurship team and led to our creation. Weâre super thankful to both and Iâm really hopeful that RPâs latest work leads to similar outcomes :)
Hey Angelinaâthank you so much for your kind words! Itâs really heartwarming to see your enthusiasm and interest in our work :)
Shrimp Size
The corporate producers weâre working with supply âheadless peeled shrimpsâ (mainly to Northern Europe) which tend to be smaller on average for this marketThis is different for example to âhead on, shell on shrimpsâ, which are typically larger (and are mainly supplied to Asia and Southern Europe)
As we sign more commitments globally, weâll likely want to supply ranges per producer depending on the market they supply
Adjusting for predicted follow-through
We decided not to discount our estimates in this first model because weâre not sure how different this will look in practice between other types of corporate commitments and ours (i.e. comparing âhens & cage-freeâ, to âshrimps & stunnersâ)The contexts seem different enough (producers, working in aquaculture, who are being bought equipment) that we donât think we can reasonably predict how this will translate
Our plan is that hopefully in a ~yearâs time we will have had some stunners in operation for long enough that we can accurately report on adherence rates, and update our numbers
Agreedâfor me the biggest piece of the puzzle I donât currently understand is the cultural experience⌠Our volunteer writing the report is from the Philippines, so although we want the report to be global, weâre hoping to have a sort of case study (maybe conduct a few interviews or something) on the Philippines to add some on-the-ground context that would be difficult to get from desk-based research alone.
Also, someone from EA Philippines also once told me that shrimp paste is often fed to whale sharks, in order to keep them present in the waters year-round to support the whale shark tourism industry, and Iâm not sure how many similar examples of complicating factors like this there are...
Hi MHR! Thanks for your kind words, weâre really excited about entering this next phase :)
Regarding your questions:
The calculation is the same, but the number weâre reporting is different, this is due to a few factors:
~4,000/â$/âyear is the actual cost-effectiveness of our stunners program to date, not including overheads other than the cost of the stunners themselves (1B /â $247.5K)
~1,500/â$/âyear in contrast, is the minimum cost-effectiveness of our stunners program going forward, which we commit to purchasing if the producer commits to stunning a minimum of 100M shrimps per year (100M /â $65,000 = ~1,500).
Historically producers have committed to more than that, so we tend to say 1,500+ /â$/âyear, because the actual number can fluctuate depending on the producer commitment
And just for further clarity, SWPâs overall cost-effectiveness (~1,300/â$/âyear) is the cost-effectiveness of our stunners program to date while also factoring in SWPâs overheads to date (1B /â ($525K+$247.5K))
Itâs worth noting that in future our stunners program will likely become the majority of our budget (rather than overheads), so itâs likely SWPâs overall cost-effectiveness will increase as a result
Most of these numbers can also be seen in the Guesstimate model (except how we arrived at the ~1,500, which is instead in the stunners funding proposal)
By the way, the Guesstimate model builds on our original BOTEC spreadsheet, so the 4,000 number can also be seen in Guesstimate, as well as how that changes to 1,300 once the overheads are factored in
UoC stands for âUnit of Certificationâ, basically just whatever is being certified by ASC, typically the farm itself (Iâve updated the linked doc now to clarify thatâthanks for spotting our jargon!)
There is, but unfortunately itâs only available to users with a login (i.e. those who bought a ticket) - weâll email to ask if weâre allowed to download and share it
Regarding shrimp pasteâthis is definitely something Iâd be most excited for someone to work on, but as I understand it there currently are quite a number of shrimp paste alternatives on the marketâboth in terms of just general vegan substitutes, but also explicitly vegan shrimp paste
I donât know how widely available those alternatives are where shrimp paste is consumed the most, but my current sense is that the solution is likely more along the lines of cultural change, rather than technical innovation (though Iâm sure a mix of the two would help)
Though Iâm not super confident in this, and hopefully weâll be able to share more insights once our volunteer has finished the report :)
Thanks very much for this write-up MHR! Weâve recently published a âtwo-year updateâ post on the Forum, and wanted to reflect on some considerations we think most likely affect the Cost-Effectiveness of this project. Rather than including the below in that post, we thought it made sense to continue the discussion that had already started here.
Considerations around the âPain-Trackâ for this intervention, for example:
The intervention targets acute rather than chronic suffering. In some Pain-Tracks, Time spent suffering can overwhelmingly dominate the calculation of suffering (though this also depends on the relative intensity of the chronic suffering compared to the acute suffering).
Similarly, how you weigh the relative suffering of Annoying, Hurtful, Disabling, and Excruciating pains can be a deciding factor. Itâs possible that these are within orders of magnitude of each other, but itâs also possible to view âExcruciatingâ pain as being infinitely worse than other types of pain (and similarly to Time as a factor, if Excruciating pain is weighted high enough, then any time in this state can end up dominating the overall calculation for the Pain-Track).
The relative welfare range of shrimpsâin particular, whether the undiluted experience model of welfare is correct or notâis another consideration that can dominate cost-effectiveness calculations (largely because the number of shrimps used and killed for food is so large),
The likelihood that we accelerate the adoption of humane slaughter practicesâboth in terms of the shorter term goal of producers buying further stunners themselves, and the longer-term goal of electrical stunning becoming the norm in the industry.
For example, we have one producer who is committed to stunning 100M shrimps, which represents 8% of their shrimps. If the âpilotâ is successful, they will likely buy further stunners to stun most (if not all) of their shrimps. This would mean our investment of $65,000 would be the first domino leading to ~1.25B shrimps being stunned per year.
Additionally, once a buyer has seen that itâs possible for their suppliers to implement stunners, they can be empowered to require that all of their suppliers stun their shrimps (or otherwise source from suppliers who already stun).
Finally, many certifiers/âpolicymakers are unwilling to require the industry to do things until it has been relatively established. Weâre unsure what the timelines of work like this might be, but believe that by counterfactually introducing stunners to the industry earlier than they would have been, it could lead to widespread adoption being accelerated by a number of years.
Any potential âimpact ceilingâ we might hit with buying stunnersâif the pool of producers large enough to stun a minimum of 100M shrimps and willing to take up our offer of a stunner is smaller than we currently estimate, then this could limit the potential scale of impact. Likewise, the potential pool could be larger than we realise, for example, we may find a number of smaller producers who want to take a stunner but canât commit to 100M shrimps, in which case we could offer to pro-rata our contribution, and work with a larger pool of producers at a similar cost-effectiveness.
Finally, we see hard-to-quantify value in whether this intervention helps to diversify interventions in the animal welfare space. Both the decision to focus on shrimps, and to purchase equipment for the industry, are both somewhat novel âbetsâ that seem to have paid off. We hope that this is encouraging for the movement more broadly to continue to invest in exploratory work in the space.
Really enjoyed thisâthanks for sharing!
Canât wait to hear/âsee the full musical when youâre finished :)
Can I ask what your idea for an EA board game was? Iâve recently started designing board games as a hobby and I was thinking about trying to do an EA one :)
I think the general point still stands that we want to advocate for more aquatic animal charities in the space.
Even if you think shrimps are the most cost-effective donation opportunity currently, a key point we wanted to make was that just because there is a Shrimp Welfare Project doesnât mean that there isnât space for more orgs.
There are a number of things SWP is not pursuing that could be really impactful, like working on shrimp paste, or brine shrimp, or fish fry.