All of lukasj10's Comments + Replies

Is it just me or is the map image link broken?

2
MathiasKB
6mo
bugged out for me too, showed up when I tried editing the post, so just republished without any changes. seems to have fixed it

Definitely... We expected no effect at worst, so at least it was trialled small and in a well-controlled manner! Do share if you have opportunities, so that it's not repeated or rolled out somewhere. Thanks!

We'll see what the data show and post an update once we make a decision.

1
Ren Ryba
7mo
Thanks, fixed :)

Thanks for the feedback Tristan. Yes, really happy with the hire!

Great idea with the narrative-type write-up! I definitely see how it could read better.

Nice one Robert! All the best. <3

Thanks for your support, Charles! Y2 should really give us more insight into what's possible.

Thanks for sharing this - interesting! Would your opinion on the mandatory use of CCTV change significantly if you considered on-farm CCTV instead?

9
Ren Ryba
2y
Thanks for the positive feedback :) If you consider on-farm (rather than slaughterhouse) CCTV, the welfare benefits increase significantly, as you're monitoring a much longer period of each animal's life. However, the tractability of an on-farm CCTV campaign would probably* be much lower. Farmers often have closer, more personal relationships with their farms than slaughterhouse owners do with their slaughterhouses. Proposing to install CCTV on farms would likely trigger a lot of backlash from farmers (particularly given the common public image of the 'family farm'). *Admittedly, this is mostly speculation (although speculation that we checked with experts). It could be the case that an on-farm CCTV campaign is more tractable than we think. If somebody tests a campaign and finds it to be tractable, then yes, my opinion of such a campaign would increase significantly. That would start to look like a highly impactful campaign. But you would first need to show that the campaign is tractable, which I don't have high hopes for. I could imagine that you might be able to increase the tractability by only focusing on industrial/factory farms, which would capture almost all of the impact for animals anyway.

Thanks for the feedback, pete! I've just gotten rid of AW. We'll read it once more to see where we can reduce the use of some of the others, too.

Interesting! It sounds like you'll have more rounds of this program later. E.g. in a year? How likely is that, would you now say?

Done, thanks so much for sharing --alex--!

This is great stuff, Karolina! Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. 

Thanks for sharing and all of your great work! I still find estimating and comparing cost-effectiveness difficult to grasp, but, roughly, how would you say the potential cost-effectiveness of such an intervention (i.e. 12 welfare points per dollar) compare to that of cage-free campaigns (as defined in https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/L5EZjjXKdNgcm253H/corporate-campaigns-affect-9-to-120-years-of-chicken-life )? Thanks! 

Thanks for the question! I generally believe that it is hard/impossible to reliably compare CEAs done using different methodologies and approaches. For example, Saulius’ CEA has a different goal than ours and takes into account the overall, average cost-effectiveness of all historical work on cage-free campaigns. In contrast, we look at the marginal, future cost-effectiveness of a feed fortification ask. Naturally they will differ a lot. I would expect that marginal cage-free $ would be lower impact than average historical cage-free $. 

It’s more infor... (read more)

It seems that at least some European countries are seriously considering a meat/climate impact tax. What impact, do you expect, this could have? Do any unexpected potential flow-through effects come to mind?

7
LewisBollard
3y
I think it depends on how the tax is structured. A tax based solely on climate impacts is likely to fall primary on beef, which could increase consumption of chicken by increasing the price gap between them (an increasing beef-chicken price gap seems to have contributed to rising US chicken consumption over the last few decades). But a tax that also considers other environmental and animal welfare impacts could reduce all animal product consumption. I was especially interested by this new Nature Communications study, which suggested a German meat climate tax might have a similar impact on beef and chicken prices. But it was based on data assuming a much lower beef climate impact, and higher chicken climate impact, than this Science 2018 meta-analysis, which I think has the most reliable data. 

Which issues/cause areas, do you think, could benefit the most from undercover investigation footage?

4
LewisBollard
3y
General attention to new species and issues (e.g. the treatment fo farmed and wild-caught fish) and focused attention on companies and governments' failure to achieve reforms for other large groups of animals (e.g. caged hens).

Thanks!

I'm seeing more and more being published on various photonics/plasmonics techniques. Could be promising. I'm hearing the ultimate goal is on-site, rapid automatic pathogen identification at <5 euro/sample.

Thanks for your great work! With respect to "Farmers reported that insects, especially crickets, will eat other insects if not provided an outside source of chitin.", do producers use insect-derived chitin as a supplement? If so, do you have a published reference for this?

Do you know how small of a fraction of your presented figures are animals kept alive for breeding (e.g. adult flies or mealworm beetles)? Do you know anything about their lifespans/mortality/fate? Thanks!

2
abrahamrowe
3y
Hi! Thanks for the questions. On the chitin, I haven't found anything cited that confirms this. A handful of farmers reported this to me, and industry guides often recommend mixing exoskeletons into foods, etc. I think a possibility is that crickets do this for nutrients besides chitin, but that is just the most well known part of exoskeletons, so people mention it. On breeding: it's going to vary depending on species and intention. If you're growing your colony, you'll need a larger breeding stock, but if you are keeping it the same size, you can use a smaller one. It's not obvious to me how large they are on various farms, and I'm not certain how to approach estimating it. I think some farms likely just pull adults into breeding programs instead of slaughtering them (at least for crickets), while other farms keep separate breeding colonies (e.g. black soldier flies and mealworms are slaughtered as larvae, so some larvae need to be allowed to grow instead of being killed). My guess is that the lives of animals raised to breed would be better than those killed, but I wouldn't put much stake in that. There are some good pictures of BSF breeding facilities and descriptions of the process in Bullock et al but I don't think the source is authoritative.

Thanks for the great write-up, guys! Do you know how expensive are the methods currently employed by conservation groups (e.g. cost per sample, etc.)? Do you think low cost, quick testing tools currently under development for disease prediction and control in high-density farmed animal systems could be adapted?

Thanks for answering, Peter! Yes, I've gone through those great resources already. I simply thought of asking the question during this AMA as maybe some new ideas arose since publishing. Thanks again!

Hey all, thanks for all that you do!

Fish and, potentially, invertebrates will probably be the most intensively farmed animals for quite some time. What fundamental research, do you reckon, is most needed to spearhead their protection and welfare? Thanks.

For fish, I'd refer you to the "Questions for Further Consideration" section of the ACE Farmed Fish Report (which we contributed research to).

For invertebrates, we wrote a three part series on next steps for research: see Part 1 on fundamental research, Part 2 on intervention research, and Part 3 on attitudes research.