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This is a memo I wrote for the 2025 Animal Advocacy Strategy Forum, which were encouraged to be highly opinionated to generate strategy discussion.
In 1980, the global population was approximately 4.5 billion and growing. There were emerging concerns about food and nutrition security with 28% of the global population undernourished.
Fish was seen as key to combatting this challenge. More than 75% of the world’s fish is consumed in developing countries. In 1988, WorldFish began the Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia (GIFT) project aimed to develop a faster-growing strain of Nile tilapia, at an annual cost of $60-90k.
By the end of 1997, a total of 553,350 GIFT fertilised fish eggs were disseminated to the Philippines, Bangladesh, China, Thailand, and Vietnam. GIFT is considered an International Public Good and is available to any country that agrees to responsibly use the GIFT they receive. The GIFT strain is now in its 20th generation and has been disseminated to 16 countries. It is estimated that 75% of global tilapia production is from GIFT and GIFT-derived strains. Most of the development and transfer of new GIFT strains are funded by governments[1] and orgs like the Gates Foundation.
In 2023, WorldFish published the first assembly of the GIFT genome, providing insights into genetic variations among farmed tilapia strains. Future advancements will integrate DNA-based approaches and genomic tools to improve key traits, such as disease resistance, salinity tolerance, flesh quality, and feed efficiency.
At the AI for Animals conference earlier this year, I got excited about the idea of trying to develop a higher welfare shrimp breed. If developed, buying high-welfare broodstock and then giving them away for free seemed like an interesting intervention.
I was worried about the potential optics of this idea, until I remembered the story of GIFT tilapia. It seems like this intervention isn't even particularly novel. The novelty here is breeding for animal welfare (though even this has been discussed in the past), but the idea of supplying specific breeds to countries is already established in the humanitarian space. Such interventions could also forge otherwise unlikely partnerships between animal welfare and humanitarian organizations, potentially leading to high-impact collaborations that effectively address global health and development as well as animal welfare.
I think animal welfare folks should explore the idea of being involved in the genetic makeup of the animals we're using on farms. And if possible, we should be trying to create higher welfare breeds.
I don't know how much of the current problems on farms can be solved by genetics. I also don't know the extent to which the industry's productivity can overlap with welfare. But it was surprising and novel to me that this kind of thing had been explored in the past. And I think more attention should be paid to it.
The United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Government of Norway, the European Union, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)/German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the New Zealand Agency for International Development (NZAID), Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP).
Minor note on clarity: I found the title confusing because "humanitarian" typically means "benefitting humans", and I think the claim here is "a method that's already been used to benefit humans could be used to benefit fish."