Comments
Thank you for your initiative! I've been hoping for a while to see this kind of organisation emerge, as it's an issue that is becoming more and more worrying. For example, here in France, insect farming has been developing very rapidly for a few years, with two start-ups in particular having raised several hundred million euros and benefiting from strong government support.
If you are interested in the environmental aspect of insect farming, please feel free to contact me. I have done a lot of research into the scientific literature on the subject and have written several articles in the French media to temper the enthusiasm and promises made by the promoters of insect consumption, and I am currently writing a paper that will also address this issue.
Hey Dustin,
It’s so awesome that you’re working on this important issue!
Please take the below comments in a spirt of constructive challenge, and with huge respect for your work on this topic!
From your website, it looks like you’ve chosen to go for a very “welfarist” approach, of basically accepting that insect farming will happen, and trying to make it cause a bit less suffering.
But, given the nascent/early stage of insect factory farming, isn’t there a strong case that we should try to block/delay the development of this new form of factory farming? It seems like there is so much that could be done, in relation to regulation, trying to discredit insect factory farming among policymakers/environmentalists/the public, etc. We are at the early stages of this industry and it feels like we may still have time to decisively alter the trajectory of it.
Going straight for a super “soft”, welfarist approach feels like potentially a major missed opportunity .
Given the tiny amount of resources we have to play with, getting this call right is key.
It would be great to hear whether you systematically considered and worked through the arguments in favour and against trying to actually block/slow the development of insect factory farming, before deciding on your current approach?
If so, please would you be willing to share those arguments?
If not, would you be willing to pause for a moment and think this through with folks from the community?
Imagine that we were in the 1950s/60s, and had had the opportunity to try to fundamentally alter the development trajectory of factory farming. Wouldn’t it have been better if we’d at least tried to really stop it then, rather than pivoting straight to “please be a bit kinder to the animals as you ‘farm’ them”?
Another question on a separate note:
If your org is determined to play “good cop” with the insect factory farming industry, do you think there is space for a different body to play “bad cop”?
Again - please take these comments in the spirit of constructive debate in which they are intended. Maybe, of course, your approach is right. It just feels like testing this is really important.
Wishing you all the best as we try to figure out how to do the most good here :) :)
Hi Forumite! Very happy to discuss (with you or anyone else reading) via email, DM--or better yet, call (https://calendly.com/dustin-crummett), or, if you'll be at EAG Bay Area, EAGx Nordics, or EAG London, or happen to be near Seattle, in person.
Nice one - thanks for your willingness to engage on this, Dustin. I’ve DM’d you…:)
Very late to the party here, but I definitely strongly agree with this constructive critique. One of the strongest reasons that corporate welfarist work has had some success in the US and EU is that those regions have very strong pre-existing land animal farming industries. So the logic of trying to make them better is defensible.
New industries, on the other hand, have extensive uncertainty. And so trying to stave off the farming all together could be a much higher "reward" endeavor than assuming it's destined to exist (e.g., see some recent wins in preemptive banning of octopus farming).
But nonetheless, I look forward to seeing this work.