Neil Dullaghan on the politics of animal welfare and EU policy

We discuss how to conduct a survey to find out whether there is opposition to factory farming, whether political support has risen or fallen, what to learn from the EU's success in pro-animal welfare policies, and what the movement should do next after cage-free campaigns. For that, we are joined by the exceptional Neil Dullaghan. He is a Senior Researcher Manager at ReThink Priorities. He works in the farmed animal welfare team, with expertise in EU policy. He holds a Ph.D. in Political & Social Science from the European University Institute and an MPhil in European Politics & Society from the University of Oxford. Neil's work looks at political support for animal welfare in the EU and outside as well as strategies and policies the movement should adopt.

Neil has been so kind as to share further readings and resources:

• Link to the my Slaughterhouse survey report
• Sioux Falls slaughter ban ballot initiative result
• Studies showing increase in political support for animal welfare (Hus & McCulloch 2023, Chaney et al 2020, Vogeler 2020 2019, Chaney 2014)
• Study about petitions increasing salience of animal welfare in UK (Chaney et al 2022)
• Mercy For Animals report on broiler progress (also covered in Bloomberg)
• Ruth Harrison Animal  Machines’
• My cow wants to have fun by Astrid Lindgren and Kristinia Forslund & the book How Astrid Lindgren achieved enactment of the 1988 law protecting farm animals in Sweden - a selection of articles and letters published in Expressen, Stockholm, 1985-1989

EU Harmonisation effect

•  Section 7 of Prof. Broom's European Parliament report on animal welfare
• The animal welfare section (pages 215-219) in the book "The Brussels effect" by Bradford.

Animal equality report on enforcement, & calls for action on fish

Metaculus questions on

• EU cage-free law (here and here)
• Date of decline of CAFOs by 90%
• A decrease in US meat production by 2025?
• Will commercial animal farming be prohibited in the US by 2041?
• Will there be a 50% decline in global meat production by 2040?

• My report on cultured meat (Dullaghan and Zhang, 2022)
• total US plant-based meat production in 2020 was 90,000 to 180,000 metric tons (the former according to Shapiro (2020) and this paywalled page from Meatingplace.com cited in Bollard (2020); the latter according to data obtained from FoodTrending.com). 13M metric tons of alternative protein (meat, seafood, milk, eggs, and dairy, excluding pulses, tofu, and tempeh) were consumed globally in 2020 (BCG 2021). ~545M metric tons of conventional meat, including seafood, is produced each year (according to OurWorldinData), mostly via the industrial farming of animals.