80,000 Hours Podcast
#185 – Lewis Bollard on the 7 most promising ways to end factory farming, and whether AI is going to be good or bad for animals
Episode guests
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
- AI could push factory farming practices beyond current biological limitations, potentially raising ethical concerns about AI perpetuating mass cruelty.
- Corporate campaigns for cage-free reforms have led to significant improvements for millions of hens, emphasizing the impact of industry commitments on animal welfare.
- Broiler chicken welfare campaigns focus on genetic improvement, humane slaughter methods, and environmental enhancements to address inherent welfare issues.
- Incremental reforms in cage-free and broiler chicken welfare initiatives play a crucial role in alleviating systemic cruelty in factory farming and improving animal well-being.
- Transition to controlled atmospheric stunning in poultry processing highlights industry efforts towards more humane slaughter practices, reflecting a shift towards elevated animal welfare standards.
- Advocates face challenges in enforcing animal welfare commitments by corporations, necessitating continuous monitoring and transparency to uphold advocacy efforts and ensure accountability.
Deep dives
The Horrors of Factory Farming
Factory farming subjects animals to extreme cruelty with practices like confining pregnant sows in gestation crates and chickens in battery cages. These methods deprive animals of their basic needs, resulting in severe suffering and conditions that include mutilation, confinement, and deprivation of natural behaviors.
Impact of Corporate Campaigns
Corporate campaigns advocating for cage-free reforms have been successful, with over 3,000 companies globally commiting to go 100% cage-free. This has led to an estimated 200 million hens already living cage-free and a projected 450 million hens benefiting once pledges are fully implemented, significantly improving the lives of countless animals.
Broiler Chicken Welfare Initiatives
Broiler chicken welfare campaigns focus on improving genetic breeds, reducing stocking density, implementing more humane slaughter methods, and enhancing environmental conditions within barns. These reform efforts aim to address the inherent welfare issues faced by broiler chickens, such as rapid growth, frail legs, and inhumane slaughter practices.
Path to Ending Factory Farming
Efforts towards ending factory farming involve incremental reforms, such as cage-free and broiler chicken welfare initiatives. Advocates emphasize the importance of addressing the systemic cruelty present in factory farming while pushing for corporate commitments and welfare improvements to alleviate the suffering of animals across the industry.
Impact of Controlled Atmospheric Stunning on Poultry Slaughter Process
An informative insight into the poultry industry reveals the transition towards controlled atmospheric stunning as a more humane method of rendering birds unconscious prior to slaughter. This shift aims to address the issue of birds being fully conscious during traditional slaughtering processes, highlighting a movement towards greater animal welfare standards in poultry processing.
Advocacy Success in Reforming Poultry Slaughtering Methods
Impressive advocacy campaigns have yielded over 500 commitments from corporations to enhance animal welfare during poultry processing, benefiting millions of chickens annually. The push for controlled atmospheric stunning as an alternative method has shown promising outcomes, emphasizing the industry's increasing receptiveness towards humane treatment of farm animals.
Retailer Challenges and Climate Emissions Impact on Animal Welfare Advocacy
Challenges have arisen in animal welfare advocacy as retailers voice concerns about potential climate emission increases linked to altering poultry farming practices. Major retailers like Tesco resist adopting welfare commitments citing emission impact fears, reflecting a complex interplay between animal welfare and environmental considerations.
Ensuring Corporate Accountability in Animal Welfare Commitments
Ensuring corporations follow through on animal welfare commitments has been a key challenge, with the absence of legal enforcement measures posing difficulty in oversight. The need for continuous monitoring and transparent reporting to uphold these commitments remains paramount to drive sustained advocacy efforts and enforce accountability in the industry.
Efforts Towards Incremental Reporting on Animal Welfare Progress
Advocacy groups emphasize the importance of incremental reporting to track and measure progress in animal welfare initiatives, maintaining a focus on consistent improvement year by year. By urging companies to provide annual updates and enforce compliance with set pledges, advocates strive to ensure continuous advancements in farm animal welfare standards.
Cautious Optimism in Achieving Broiler Chicken Welfare Reforms
Cautious optimism surrounds the future prospects of achieving significant broiler chicken welfare reforms, with increasing attention drawn to the plight of farm animals. Advocates foresee potential regulatory shifts and reform movements driving improved animal welfare standards in the broiler chicken industry in the coming years.
Insight into Fish Farming Practices and Welfare Concerns
Exploring the diverse landscape of fish farming unveils various practices from wild-caught to tank-based aquaculture, highlighting the unique experiences and welfare considerations across different fish species. Challenges in maintaining water quality and reducing mortality rates underscore the need for reforms to enhance fish welfare standards and address environmental impacts.
Evaluating Fish Welfare in Farmed and Wild-Caught Practices
The discussion delves into the distinct experiences of fishes in farmed and wild-caught settings, stressing welfare concerns related to environmental conditions and mortality rates. Efforts to understand and address the suffering of fish species, particularly in long production cycles, highlight the importance of advancing practices to improve fish welfare across aquaculture industries.
Understanding and Addressing Welfare Implications in Fish Farming
The conversation delves into the welfare implications of fish farming practices, shedding light on issues of water quality, mortality rates, and abnormality risks associated with crowded farming conditions. Considerations around prolonged exposure to poor conditions underscore the necessity of implementing reforms to enhance fish welfare and address ethical concerns.
Progress and Challenges in Promoting Humane Fish Slaughter Techniques
Efforts to promote humane fish slaughter methods through stunning technologies reflect ongoing advancements and challenges in ensuring ethical treatment during the slaughtering process. The discussion navigates through innovative approaches, such as stunning technologies and industry responses, signaling a shift towards more humane practices in fish processing.
Progress in Addressing Farm Animal Welfare Through Global Engagement with Regulators
Global advocates have been engaging with regulators worldwide to improve farm animal welfare. Noteworthy progress has been made in Thailand, where a collaboration with regulators led to establishing standards, enhancing slaughter conditions, and setting governmental benchmarks for animal welfare.
Consumer Advocacy Challenges in Promoting Veganism or Vegetarianism
The podcast highlights the challenges of advocating for consumer behavior change towards veganism or vegetarianism. Despite long-standing efforts and funding in this area, studies indicate minimal impact on increasing the percentage of vegetarians or vegans, suggesting the difficulty of convincing individuals to make significant dietary changes.
Shift from Individual Action to Political Movement in Addressing Factory Farming
Drawing lessons from the climate movement, the podcast advocates for transitioning towards a political movement focused on regulatory and legislative changes to address factory farming issues. Emphasizing collective action over individual dietary choices can potentially drive more impactful and systemic transformations in the industry.
"The constraint right now on factory farming is how far can you push the biology of these animals? But AI could remove that constraint. It could say, 'Actually, we can push them further in these ways and these ways, and they still stay alive. And we’ve modelled out every possibility and we’ve found that it works.' I think another possibility, which I don’t understand as well, is that AI could lock in current moral values. And I think in particular there’s a risk that if AI is learning from what we do as humans today, the lesson it’s going to learn is that it’s OK to tolerate mass cruelty, so long as it occurs behind closed doors. I think there’s a risk that if it learns that, then it perpetuates that value, and perhaps slows human moral progress on this issue." —Lewis Bollard
In today’s episode, host Luisa Rodriguez speaks to Lewis Bollard — director of the Farm Animal Welfare programme at Open Philanthropy — about the promising progress and future interventions to end the worst factory farming practices still around today.
Links to learn more, highlights, and full transcript.
They cover:
- The staggering scale of animal suffering in factory farms, and how it will only get worse without intervention.
- Work to improve farmed animal welfare that Open Philanthropy is excited about funding.
- The amazing recent progress made in farm animal welfare — including regulatory attention in the EU and a big win at the US Supreme Court — and the work that still needs to be done.
- The occasional tension between ending factory farming and curbing climate change
- How AI could transform factory farming for better or worse — and Lewis’s fears that the technology will just help us maximise cruelty in the name of profit.
- How Lewis has updated his opinions or grantmaking as a result of new research on the “moral weights” of different species.
- Lewis’s personal journey working on farm animal welfare, and how he copes with the emotional toll of confronting the scale of animal suffering.
- How listeners can get involved in the growing movement to end factory farming — from career and volunteer opportunities to impactful donations.
- And much more.
Chapters:
- Common objections to ending factory farming (00:13:21)
- Potential solutions (00:30:55)
- Cage-free reforms (00:34:25)
- Broiler chicken welfare (00:46:48)
- Do companies follow through on these commitments? (01:00:21)
- Fish welfare (01:05:02)
- Alternatives to animal proteins (01:16:36)
- Farm animal welfare in Asia (01:26:00)
- Farm animal welfare in Europe (01:30:45)
- Animal welfare science (01:42:09)
- Approaches Lewis is less excited about (01:52:10)
- Will we end factory farming in our lifetimes? (01:56:36)
- Effect of AI (01:57:59)
- Recent big wins for farm animals (02:07:38)
- How animal advocacy has changed since Lewis first got involved (02:15:57)
- Response to the Moral Weight Project (02:19:52)
- How to help (02:28:14)
Producer and editor: Keiran Harris
Audio engineering lead: Ben Cordell
Technical editing: Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong
Additional content editing: Katy Moore and Luisa Rodriguez
Transcriptions: Katy Moore
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