All of JamieGittins's Comments + Replies
Thanks for a really interesting comment Andrew! I think you're definitely correct that we shouldn't underestimate people's moral concern for insects. I recently saw this poll by Rethink Priorities which shows that around half to two thirds of Americans believe that insects can feel pain, which isn't too far off the kind of responses you get when you ask about fish.
I think ultimately insect welfare is currently so overlooked for a mixture of reasons, not just the lack of empathy that I address in my post. And I think you're spot on in identifying that the wild/farmed distinction is probably a key part of this.
Some people have been adding to the wiki (linked at the top of this list) but I doubt that the updates have captured all the new orgs in EA in the last couple of years.
This is so awesome! Glad that things have gotten off to such a promising start! Thank you for the clear and thoughtful write-up :)
Thanks for the response Karolina. Great that you've looked at the policy change route and that legislation would be the long-term goal of this.
In relation to your second response point: Looking at the published conversation notes from the interview with the animal advocate who raised the concern, they do not appear to be concerned about cage-free in the same way that they are about this intervention. These quotes show that the advocate thinks that cage-free does not suffer from the same concerns as the feed fortification intervention:
"Feed fortificat...
One point that I feel that we haven’t communicated well enough on is that cost of $27,000 per farm we have in the CEA doesn’t literally mean that we will pay the farm $27,000. As mentioned in the post, “this aims to set a conservative minimal threshold for cost-effectiveness. A high-scale, lower cost strategy (e.g. outreach through farmers associations) could further increase cost-effectiveness.”. We want to test in our CEA the worst possible scenario and it doesn’t mean that this will be the strategy. I will make a note to structure our reports diff...
Thank you for this report. Really interesting to learn about a new animal welfare intervention - I never knew that osteoporosis was such a big problem for laying hens.
I had a couple of questions:
- In the linked cost-effectiveness analysis, you estimate that the average flock size in 2007 was 25,500 hens. Based on a growth rate of 6-8% in the Indian egg industry per year, you estimate that the average flock size in 2019 is approximately 59,000 hens. This seems to assume that no new farms were built in that decade, and that all new hens in India were added to
Hi Jamie! Thanks for engaging with the research.
- On flock size, yes you are understanding this correctly. You make a good point, although the model doesn’t rely much on this factor so I wouldn’t expect it to greatly alter the endline cost-effectiveness. But to double-check, I went back to our model and replaced the current estimate of flock size in 2019 with a range from 25,500 to 59,000 hens (capturing the possibility that flock sizes remained the same as in 2007 and all hens were placed in new farms, as well as the possibility that no new farms were
Thank you for this Jamie!
I've been using the slightly looser definition of any organisations that are currently or formerly "Top Charities" or "Standout charities." This would add quite a few to your list.
I had quite a debate about whether to expand the list to some of these charities. I decided against it in the end in order to keep the list to a manageable length (for both me and people reading it).
- Veganuary
- Sentience Politics
- Global Food Partners
- Aquatic Life Institute
- 50by40
- Credence Institute
- Farmed Animal Funders
Good suggestions! I alread...
I'm not familiar with GitHub, but if anyone sees this and thinks it is worthwhile to convert this list onto GitHub then please do!
Thank you for this! I won't add DMI, since it is currently a GiveWell standout charity rather than a 'top charity' (and my criteria is just to list their top charities, in order to keep this list easier to manage!).
I'll add OPIS - that's a great addition!
Thank you for those recommendations Brian, much appreciated! I have added the majority of them onto the list :)
Really glad to see an organisation focused on this cause. I look forward to following your progress!
I don’t have time in the foreseeable future to write up a review of how different invertebrates stack up against the three factors I’ve written about (although this is something I’d like to do at some point). Since I already had all the info to hand, I thought I'd jot down a very short summary anyway:
Octopodes (Cephalopoda)
- Neuron count: Contain 500 million total neurons in the central nervous system with approx. 45 million in the central brain complex. This number of neurons is comparable with the number of neurons in some vertebrates.
- Cortex/midbrain eq
This is really cool! I'm excited to listen :)