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This is true:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/L6wdRBCh3izCD244t/farmers-in-the-animalist-coalition

Regarding farmers, their economic sector is caught between increasing productivity and saturation of demand (the Engle curve), and consequently agriculture and husbandry have been losing weight in GDP since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. From the perspective of farmers, animal welfare requirements are an opportunity to increase their share of the GDP. This is exactly the same situation as that for the energy-producing sectors as consequence of climate change: the need to decarbonize is a clear boon to utilities, and now the industry is very supportive of “Net Zero”.

Unfortunately, there is an important difference between both cases: the international competition that utilities face is almost nonexistent, whereas farmers suffer from external competition. They rightfully fear that welfare requirements will only affect local producers, and their net result would simply be losing their market share.

Consequently, the animalist lobby shall focus above all in fighting international competition to local farmers.

Blake Hannagan

14d

To my understanding, Animal Policy International is a great org trying to advocate for policies to not import lower welfare animal products, within their resource constraints. This is effectively fighting the international competition to local farmers. They could certainly use more help and/or resources to implement these policies worldwide, but I did want to point out part of the animalist lobby is focusing on this.

Arturo Macias14d1

That is good news, but is it a general understanding in the Animal advocacy community?

See in context

Animal advocates are too reluctant to sit at the industry's table

by Aaron Boddy🔸

Jun 182 min read 8

64

Animal welfare

Frontpage

Animal advocates are too reluctant to sit at the industry's table

Improved Farm-Level Welfare Outcomes

8 comments

This is one of the memos I wrote for the 2025 Animal Advocacy Strategy Forum, which were encouraged to be highly opinionated to generate strategy discussion.

In 2017, McDonald’s refused to sign the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC), and instead set eight Broiler Welfare Commitments to be achieved by the end of 2024.

As far as I can tell, the movement responded to this by calling it humanewashing, and pushed harder for the BCC. But if McDonald’s actually did do all the things they said they would, the impact on the broilers would likely be more impactful than the BCC.

I’m surprised we don’t have more Good Cops collaborating with the industry on initiatives like this.
If it does turn out to be humanewashing, we can push for alignment from the inside.
It’s not that this level of engagement isn't possible for NGOs - FAI Farms and WWF do it. We need to have a seat at the table.

As case in point, I want to discuss McDonald's commitment to developing:

Improved Farm-Level Welfare Outcomes

Source chickens for the McDonald’s System that are raised with improved welfare outcomes. We plan to set targets, measure performance and report on key farm-level welfare outcomes across our largest markets.

In 2019, McDonald’s “Chicken Sustainability Advisory Council” helped define 15 Key Welfare Indicators (KWIs), though didn’t say what these were.
In 2022, they apparently set targets for these, ranking suppliers in “performance peer groups” to inform “timebound improvement goals”. They have data on 6.8 billion birds as of the end of 2023.

Actually finding out what these KWIs are was a bit of a challenge.
However, I’m fairly certain that they are the same 15 KWIs published in this 68pg report by the International Poultry Welfare Alliance (as McDonald’s, and other CSAC orgs, are members).

Turns out, it’s pretty comprehensive: the KWIs actually have multiple measurements that go into them.
And there doesn’t seem to be any advice on how to prioritise what is most important. Additionally, it doesn’t recommend any specific Targets (though McDonald’s has said they have these internally as of the 2022 update).

If we use GPT to scan the report and pull out the actual KWIs, then suggest targets for each measurement, and rank them by relative importance - we have the basis of a new BCC that we can push the industry to commit to:

Over 100 industry members are already on board with
We can push to set actual targets and report on them
We can prioritise and simplify the ask by pushing for the most important ones (i.e. Flock Mortality, Air Quality, Mobility & Leg Condition, Processing Effectiveness).

When we dismiss industry initiatives as mere humanewashing without engaging, we miss crucial opportunities to shape corporate metrics, amplify impact, and create meaningful change from within.

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Kristof Redei12d6

Great post, and rhymes with some of the challenges I've observed in my own area of interest, tobacco harm reduction, particularly this part:

As far as I can tell, the movement responded to this by calling it humanewashing, and pushed harder for the BCC. But if McDonald’s actually did do all the things they said they would, the impact on the broilers would likely be more impactful than the BCC.

A number of large tobacco companies have developed products they claim are significantly less harmful than cigarettes and can serve to transition smokers away from them. If this is true, it's a boon for public health, but many organizations in the field, including the WHO from which many regulators in LMICs take their cue, support banning them altogether despite criticism from non-industry affiliated experts who see their potential in reducing death and disease from smoking.

I get the impression that pragmatists in drug policy and animal welfare have quite a bit to learn from each other in advocating for sensible policies that avoid letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Jason12d9

The animal welfare situation strikes me as more complex than the tobacco policy analogue. Companies will often flock to the least demanding standard, and it's questionable that most consumers will treat competing certifications as much more than acceptable vs. illegitimate. So one could worry that giving legitimacy to a McWelfare proposal would have undermined the attractiveness of the BCC for companies and consumers.

It strikes me as considerably less likely that consumers would fail to distinguish between full-harm tobacco, lower-harm tobacco, and abstinence. They are pretty self-evidently different in germane ways, minimizing the risk of consumer confusion or companies being able to pass off higher-harm interventions via safetywashing.

Kristof Redei7d3

I think there's some complexity (and a lot of confusion) in the tobacco story as well. The industry did try to trick consumers and regulators in the 1970's that light cigarettes were less harmful when they themselves had evidence that that wasn't the case. And now, the opposite is happening as misinformation has resulted in majorities of doctors believing nicotine causes cancer and majorities of consumers believing vaping is as harmful or more harmful than smoking.

Liam Hodgson10d5

Hi Aaron, thank you for sharing this.

I agree on the importance of collaboration between NGO’s and the industry and there are some wonderful examples of how this has created great changes for animal welfare, however collaboration is not always possible. In this particular example, many NGO’s across multiple countries have tried, and often failed, to engage with McDonald’s to discuss their animal welfare policies. The majority of NGOs approach their work in this way, through engaging directly with companies and offering feasible solutions, timelines, and support for improving animal welfare. Open dialogue is always the preferred option, but this becomes difficult when companies refuse to engage.

‘Humane washing’ is a strong accusation but could be considered an accurate description in this particular situation as the vast majority of what McDonald’s is committing to do is what most of the industry already does (this of course doesn't take into account their behind the scenes work). Here are a few examples:

Most producers and other industry stakeholders already set their own targets for welfare outcomes, with some publicly reporting on them.
Many producers trial welfare monitoring technologies, however monitoring becomes less important when we already know what the biggest welfare issues are.
The science on stocking densities and genetics are already extremely robust; additional trials without changing welfare-critical inputs are unlikely to shift welfare outcomes in a meaningful way.

This is not a direct criticism of McDonald’s’ commitment, for example, switching to CAS, which is also a requirement of the BCC, is a very positive, and welcomed welfare improvement. However, “the impact on the broilers would likely be more impactful than the BCC.” is an erroneous assumption and this is because Mc’Donald’s’ commitment does not address breed. Conventional fast growing breeds that Mc’Donalds, and the majority of the industry, use are bred for their extremely high growth rate, making them highly susceptible to heart and leg problems, behavioural deprivation, and even poorer quality meat. While additional space and enrichment are extremely important, research shows that breed must also be addressed for sufficient welfare improvements. The BCC addresses all of these issues and will likely have significantly better welfare outcomes than McDonald’s who are only addressing some.

The BCC is a commercially viable solution to suffering that already does what you are suggesting in this article. It has targets, is reported on, and is already proven to improve “Flock Mortality, Air Quality, Mobility & Leg Condition, Processing Effectiveness”.

It is positive that McDonald’s are looking at how they can improve welfare, but the proposals seem to represent the bare minimum. I would love to hear some of your further thoughts on how NGO’s could work better with companies such as McDonald’s when engagement is difficult.

alene14d4

This is SUCH a great post. Very needed. Thank you Aaron!

Arturo Macias21d1

This is true:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/L6wdRBCh3izCD244t/farmers-in-the-animalist-coalition

Consequently, the animalist lobby shall focus above all in fighting international competition to local farmers.

Blake Hannagan14d2

Arturo Macias14d1

That is good news, but is it a general understanding in the Animal advocacy community?