Every year tens of billions of animals are raised in terrible conditions in factory farms before being killed for human consumption. Over the last two years Lewis Bollard – Project Officer for Farm Animal Welfare at the Open Philanthropy Project – has conducted extensive research into the best ways to eliminate animal suffering in farms as soon as possible. This has resulted in $30 million in grants to farm animal advocacy.
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We covered almost every approach being taken, which ones work, and how individuals can best contribute through their careers.
We also had time to venture into a wide range of issues that are less often discussed, including:
* Why Lewis thinks insect farming would be worse than the status quo, and whether we should look for ‘humane’ insecticides;
* How young people can set themselves up to contribute to scientific research into meat alternatives;
* How genetic manipulation of chickens has caused them to suffer much more than their ancestors, but could also be used to make them better off;
* Why Lewis is skeptical of vegan advocacy;
* Why he doubts that much can be done to tackle factory farming through legal advocacy or electoral politics;
* Which species of farm animals is best to focus on first;
* Whether fish and crustaceans are conscious, and if so what can be done for them;
* Many other issues listed below in the Overview of the discussion.
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Overview of the discussion
**2m40s** What originally drew you to dedicate your career to helping animals and why did Open Philanthropy end up focusing on it?
**5m40s** Do you have any concrete way of assessing the severity of animal suffering?
**7m10s** Do you think the environmental gains are large compared to those that we might hope to get from animal welfare improvement?
**7m55s** What grants have you made at Open Phil? How did you go about deciding which groups to fund and which ones not to fund?
**9m50s** Why does Open Phil focus on chickens and fish? Is this the right call?
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