PhD student (in bioethics) in the National University of Singapore
Fai
Karma: 2,000
Thank you for the clarifcation! And thanks for engaging in the conversation!
Thanks for the reply!
it would make sense to focus on layers in the Middle East until hitting diminishing returns there.
I wonder why you hold this view. It seems to me that for the caged layer issue, it’s a reversion problem because the vast majority of laying hens in the Middle East are already caged, while for the caged broiler issue, it can still be seen as a prevention problem because many broilers are still not yet in caged systems. And it seems to me that it’s plausible that a prevention might be easier and more effective than a reversion?
Thank you for the post! I have a question.
3. Cage-free farming in the Middle East
I wonder if this org, if incubated, might potentially expand to the issue of caged broiler farming?
AI Alignment: The Case for Including Animals
We should prioritize slowing the spread of industrial animal agriculture in future high-production regions over investing in advocacy in currently high-production regions that remain neglected in terms of farmed animal advocacy.
I support this, I gave an EAGx (Singapore) talk basically arguing for this (maybe a more general point, that we should focus much more on prevention)
Thank you for the post. I have a follow-up question which I hope you or Givewell can answer: Do Givewell also give cage systems to people in need, or teach them how to use cages, or both? I am asking because I have seen livelihood projects that do one of these. If my memory is not wrong, they include FAO, World Bank, the Dutch Government, and Heifer (yes, they don’t just give cows, they give chickens too and teach them how to use cage systems).
Hi Cameron,
Did you see Chytrid Fungal Infection and Frog Welfare — EA Forum?
It would be great if you can respond to it too.
Thank you very much for writing the post. Albeit unsurprising, it’s somewhat disheartening to see this post being much less popular than the frog slaughter one. I have to say excluding tractability, I probably care about this issue than frog slaughter more.
Do you have a sense of the tractability (which includes making enough people care about this) of this issue, and what can be done to increase it?
Hi Lewis, this podcast interview, and the match fund is really exciting. I learned many new things in this.
I wonder if you have plans to touch more on fish welfare. And is it possible that you can touch on invertebrate welfare (despite it being out of scope now for OP)?
We discuss two contradictory views about factory farming that produce the same conclusion: that its end is either inevitable or impossible.
Usually when I say anything to you it’s about practical stuff, but this time it’s going to be pedantic, please excuse me this time.
I think strictly speaking contradictory statements can’t be both false (and of course can’t be both true). And these two statements can be both false, and I think they are indeed both false (as you pointed out clearly).
I think statements that can’t be both true but can be both false are called contrary statements? (I only studied logic in Chinese so I am not sure).
Thank you for suggesting that you are willing to support a potential solution to this.
This gave me an idea, maybe if enough of us signaling that we are willing to donate/work/volunteer for this potential new charity, we can make it come true?
I am certainly willing to allocate the majority (see update below) of my next years’ donations to this potential charity (or this year, if this charity can come this fast), and provide free advisory service to it.
UPDATE: On reflection, maybe it was too quick a decision to pledge that it should be the “majority” of my next years donations before further investigations on other alternatives. But I am very sure it will be significant (if this charity do come into existence).
Thank you so much for this important post. This could be a low-hanging fruit. And I hope I can shed some light on where the fruit trees might be located.
I am not sure about the non-Asian countries that export frog legs to Europe, but I quite certain that it’s pointless to try to directly convince/force processing factories in Asia to kill frogs in more humane ways. The way to go is to affect how the demand side behaves.
And I think it’s not the best strategy to try to use education/adovcacy to try to reduce frog leg consumption. At least not as a standalone strategy. But it could be part of other work like corporate engagement and lobbying.
I also think corporate engagement work, like the Carrehour win PETA seems to be associated with, won’t have a significant effect on the number of frogs beings raised and killed inhumanely. I believe the reason is that the demand is simply way higher than supply (and prices are like super high because of that), meaning that whatever amount of frog legs that Carrefour gives up would be picked up by someone else. This is pretty much regardless of how large of a purchaser Carrefour are, because other supermarkets and restaurants can’t buy enough anyway, they would just likely pick those up.
I think the way to go is to get European countries (main target would be France) or EU at large to ban frog legs that were killed inhumanely. And I think a strategy that can be tried is to get charities other than PETA to do basically the same investigations and then protests.
“Freshness” being perceived as important for taste is definitely true in China. In some wet markets in China, frog vendors try to skin the frogs first and keep the head intact, and only cut the heads off when a customer verifies that that frog is alive, and then buys the frog.
To be “fair”, some processing factories in Asia who exports to Europe cut the heads of the frogs first, so those frogs suffer way less (but still horrifically).
I am not sure why there is a high variety of methods for killing frogs for the same product. But I guess it might be because different factories just try to find different ways for killing frogs in the quickest ways, and it happens that it largely depends on their workers’ hand skills and their equipment?
“Frogs: Leg removal without anaesthesia.＂ is an understatement of what could happen to frogs used to produce frog legs endure. A lot of them in processing factories in Asia are skinned alive first and put or hang (using a hook piercing through their eyes or feet) there, until another worker has time to cut off their legs.
I didn’t put up links to videos about the practice, but if you want to know the extent of suffering, it should be easy to find. (I just realised the OP put up a video too, after typing the comment)
I will write another comment related to strategy.
Thank you very much for the post! I agree with a lot of things you said here.
Underrated (undervoted) post.
Thanks for writing the post!
A meta-question: Could it be more truthful, maybe potentially less triggering, if you name the title “Chicken welfare reforms may be harmful (or more beneficial than current estimates) accounting for effects on wild arthropods?” instead?
I don’t get the impression that the majority of animal advocates are strongly motivated by reducing animal suffering,
I wonder if you can clarify the actual group of people you are referring to by “animal advocates. animal advocates in general?
Thank you for the post! I have a question: I wonder if the effects on wild animal welfare of your interventions and donation are being accounted for?
Thank you for your answer! I agree that it probably makes sense to focus on one thing first and build a track record there (before trying other things).
I am also quite confident that caged broilers are the very small minority of broiler productions in Africa. But I think this might (or might not) actually be a reason to believe that it is something impactful to work on—If we believe that it could become much more popular later and we can do something to prevent it or slow it when it is still small.
For instance, there were, as far as my research goes, virtually no broilers raised in cages in China in 2010. And then in roughly 2011-2014, some academic and commercial research (some government subsidized) on caged broiler systems came out and some seemingly experimental commercial caged broiler farms emerged. Industry news articles (like this) still described this new practice as emerging but the very small minority. But it seemed to have kicked started in 2015, and in 2023, the Chinese government formally endorsed caged broiler system as the preferred broiler raising system in China, and said in their report that in 2023, 70% of white feathered broilers in China were already raised in cages. I think retrospectively, maybe something could have been done to prevent or slow down this trend.
I changed the link to Ghana 1. Thank you for the reminder!
I actually don’t have anything substantive to say. But since I often read your posts and not comment or say thank you (but I usually upvoted), so for once I would like to say thank you for your interesting, stimulating, and often important work!