“Forecasting farmed animal numbers in 2033” by Hannah McKay🔸, Sagar K Shah, Rethink Priorities

Citation: McKay, H. and Shah, S. (2025). Forecasting farmed animal numbers in 2033. Rethink Priorities.

The report is also available on the Rethink Priorities website.

Executive summary

We produced rough-and-ready forecasts of the number of animals farmed in 2033 with the aim of helping advocates and funders with prioritization decisions. We focus on the most numerous groups of farmed animals: broiler chickens, finfishes, shrimps, and select insect species.

Our forecasts suggest almost 6 trillion of these animals could be slaughtered in 2033 (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Invertebrates could account for 95% of farmed animals slaughtered in 2033 according to our midpoint estimates. Note that ‘Insects’ only includes black soldier fly larvae and mealworms.

Our midpoint estimates point to a potential fourfold increase in the number of animals slaughtered from 2023 to 2033 and a doubling of the number of animals farmed at any time.

Invertebrates drive the majority of [...]

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Outline:

(00:31) Executive summary

(03:37) Introduction

(05:54) Findings

(05:58) Animal farming is set to grow over the next decade

(08:02) Almost 6 trillion animals could be slaughtered in 2033

(10:45) Today, most farmed animals are invertebrates and this majority will likely increase in the future

(13:07) Insect farming could be the fastest-growing animal agriculture industry going forward, but its future is uncertain

(15:04) Implications for animal advocacy

(16:50) Caveats

(20:45) Acknowledgements

(20:53) Appendix 1: Method

(20:58) Overview

(22:53) Data sources

(24:14) Appendix 2: Graphs with credible intervals

(24:59) References

The original text contained 11 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
May 9th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Rw3iXiJ4Fw4ePu4t6/forecasting-farmed-animal-numbers-in-2033

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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