I assume this is not a determinant factor. Otherwise, I would have expected economic assessments to consider a longer depreciation period than 15 to 25 years, and transition periods longer than this too. Across 10 bans in Europe, I got a time between the annoucement of the ban until it starts applying to all systems ranging from 4 to 28 years, with the mean being 12.2 years.
I've been looking at this housing part more in the US and that high A-frame era of barns was then followed by 'manure belt' farms around the 00's. I am of the understanding that many of the A-frame era barns no longer exist and are replaced by new cage-free barns. Whereas the 'manure belt' era farms are likely the ones still with cages in them. I see what you mean about the bans in Europe. Two things on that, 1. In all the cases you're describing there was a shift from battery cages to enriched cages. So that is two eras of cages potentially in one overall housing unit. 2. I think there is also additional years in advance of a ban to be considered, markets, particularly now on cage-free in Europe have shifted significantly in advance of the bans announced and I think the same thing is happening in countries we will soon see bans from.
I wonder whether some sympathy from animal advocates towards furnished cages relative to conventional cages was needed to get furnished cages. Without that sympathy, in cases where cage-free was not really on the table, the outcome could have been conventional instead furnished cages? If so, animal advocates could still advocate for cage-free, but make it clear that furnished cages are better than conventional cages.
I've not seen that sympathy expressed. Not saying it isn't or wasn't there. I think this might be more a result of the power struggle.
Did you mean to add something else? The sentence above does not end with a dot.
Probably, but I forget what :-)
Eyeballing Figure 3 of this report from Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), the one below which Joren was referring to, there were around 80 M cage-free hens at the start of 2009 in the countries in the EU today, 60 M in barns, and 20 M in free-range. In addition, it looks like there were 220 M in cages, which implies a total of 300 M (= (220 + 80)*10^6), of which 26.7 % (= 80*10^6/(300*10^6)) were cage-free. The EU banned conventional cages 3 years later. It looks like around 10 % of laying hens in China are cage-free. So I wonder whether there are tractable ways of pushing for a ban on conventional cages there, or more states in India.
Yes, there are definitely opportunities to be found. I think part of that is identifying the waves and power. China went rather rapidly from non-intensive egg production cage-free. 90's was the first wave of this, and then there was a bigger push to industralize and move to cages in the 00's. I'm hopeful about work in China creating positive changes for laying hens.
I like the style of promoting this conversation! Thanks for starting it.
A few additional points that might be useful.
Furnished cages typical lifespans are considered to be 15-25 years. If there is uncertainty and financial strain, it is likely that this will be pushed to the further end of that and beyond it. A typical response I've heard regarding the shift away from cages is something like "the farmer is going to keep this going as long as they can and then retire".
Beyond just the systems, the houses they are built in have lifespans of around 50 years. Due to different needs for cage vs cage-free systems, a house built for a cage system may not be able to easily or at all be converted to house cage-free systems.
@JamesÖz 🔸 points about advocacy cost and public support resonate with me. My understanding is where we have seen furnished/larger cages pop up, like in Europe, Canada, Australia, South Korea briefly in the US. This hasn't been an advocate push. The push has been for cage-free and the industry has lobbied to have that lowered to furnished/larger cages.
@Mia Fernyhough point about any cage putting a cap on welfare improvement resonates. I see
@Joren Vuylsteke shared a chart of the change and I think by starting from 2009, it misses some of the shift to cage-free which was already happening in advance of that. I can share a chart in DM if anyone would like. ~50M was cage-free in 2003, ~75M in 2006. Countries like Germany leading this.
Overall, one of the strongest things points from my perspective is being aware that there are definitely waves of change in the systems that we can benefit on focussing on. These waves are also present in the US, where changes in standards happened around the year 2000. I think advocacy in many places has the power to shift the choices when change needs to be made. Ie a laying hen system needs to be replaced/refurbished, the obvious choice then being cage-free. This from my perspective is one of the key differences and increased challenge in doing broiler work, these moments of capital investment do not occur in the same way as in cage-free. And where loans for new 'higher welfare' buildings (capital cost) is a clearer investment case when it comes to cage-free, the same situation is not present for broilers where the costs are almost exclusively related to operating costs (feed etc).
Broiler Breeds: These grandparent stock as you write do take years to build up, however, that process has already been happening as companies have committed and moved to the BCC, so additional growth in this will happen significantly faster than, when first developing these new breeds. Scaling up with demand is now more like a year to two now, as it is drawing from a larger base.
In terms of transitioning cage-free barns taking months and years to complete, vs a slaughter device for broilers being implemented significantly faster. I think this is also related to planning. To reduce down time, barn transitions can happen quickly, but a barn transition would likely not happen if new caged-hens had been just put into a system, rather they would wait for these birds to be slaughtered. But if they were near end of life, concievably a barn system transition could happen in the same or faster timeframe than a CAS is installed, based on a companies funding and planning.
I think it is also useful to consider the impact on welfare, when prioritising some of these interventions. Ie breed has a significantly larger impact on broilers than slaughter https://welfarefootprint.org/#
On the timelines of implementing cage-free commitments. It is true that many commitments made in the global north focussed on longer, and namely 2025 fulfilment dates. However, the implementation of many of these commitments started from the inception of their commitment in a phased approach. More recently, for example with Kewpie in Asia, smaller and shorter time milestones are being agreed upon, that perhaps better illustrates what change often looks like.
Overall, my personal perspective, and I do work on corporate commitments, they still seems like a good bet. Due to the combination of impact on animals in near/medium term, increasing the competence of campaigning organisations and embedding animal welfare policy within food companies.
Thanks, the report this year will be coming out a bit later due to another big project being released imminently.
It is promising seeing that the cumulative results from previous years continue to increase. For example: the 2023 cumulative when from 89% at the time of the report to now being 93%.
Thanks for the suggestions, I will mention them to the team.
Thanks for writing this, this is also something I have been thinking about and you've expressed it more eloquently.
One thing I have thought might be useful is at times showing restraint with job titling. I've observed cases where people have had a title for example Director in a small org or growing org, and in a larger org this role might be a coordinator, lead, admin.
I've thought at times this doesn't necessarily set people up for long term career success as the logical career step in terms of skills and growth, or a career shift, often is associated with a lower sounding title. Which I think decreases motivation to take on these roles.
At the same time I have seen people, including myself, take a decrease in salary and title, in order to shift careers and move forward.
I think you are in a better position to see what is needed. How I would think about this is what leverage do your opponents to these asks have and if you think your actions would be powerful enough to overcome them.
Many MPs are supportive of animal issues but have little incentive to raise it as a political issue. One MP and one staffer said that politicians are often exposed to radical animal activists and need to be shown that animal advocates can be moderate and offer reasonable policy solutions.
I think there is a difference between radical actions and radical asks. If a radical action is asking for a country to immediately stop eating meat, the ask and action are generally considered easy to write off and dismiss as being unrealistic. I think this is often a default view of animal activists. Radical actions (and the threat of them) with a reasonable ask, ie cage-free campaigns, are more difficult to be dismissed.
The issues you chose to focus on from my perspective, seem quite reasonable. Are you considering incorporating more radical actions into your future plans?
If I get it right, your thoughts are how do we mitigate costs, limit logistics and provide better access to major organisations and funders.
I'm excited about and supportive of how AVA has developed regional conferences. I attended the Asia AVA and noticed that numerous funders from other parts of the world were in attendance as well as staff from major organisations. I think the regional events provide a number of other pluses that AVA Africa pretty much say themselves.
By hosting this event on the continent, we can:
Bring together a larger, more diverse group of advocates from the region.
Address logistical and cost barriers such as visa challenges and travel expenses.
Facilitate better-informed and regionally relevant interventions for farmed animals.
Many funders I've spoken to have a genuine interest in supporting and growing animal protection work in other parts of the world and I can imagine that their attendance will continue and probably grow at these regional events. I also see potential, that these regional events, might inspire future funders in each region, something I see as important as we continue to grow this work.
I can see that LA might not be the best place if we are looking at a global event, concerns about the scholarship progress and your burning desire to do great things for animals. I also think that the addition of the regional conferences is a fantastic step in improving accessibility for organisations to meet, co-create, build community and fundraise.
***
In your post and subsequent comments I sense dissatisfaction with the scholarship process and that your primary goal of attending AVA US is to access funders. I realise you are posting from an anonymous account, so maybe you already do this, but if not. Post about the work your organisation is doing here and on FAST. I'm sure people would love to hear about it. If you haven't presented at a regional AVA summit or a conference like CARE I think might be a great thing to do.
I've been looking at this housing part more in the US and that high A-frame era of barns was then followed by 'manure belt' farms around the 00's. I am of the understanding that many of the A-frame era barns no longer exist and are replaced by new cage-free barns. Whereas the 'manure belt' era farms are likely the ones still with cages in them. I see what you mean about the bans in Europe. Two things on that, 1. In all the cases you're describing there was a shift from battery cages to enriched cages. So that is two eras of cages potentially in one overall housing unit. 2. I think there is also additional years in advance of a ban to be considered, markets, particularly now on cage-free in Europe have shifted significantly in advance of the bans announced and I think the same thing is happening in countries we will soon see bans from.
I've not seen that sympathy expressed. Not saying it isn't or wasn't there. I think this might be more a result of the power struggle.
Probably, but I forget what :-)
Yes, there are definitely opportunities to be found. I think part of that is identifying the waves and power. China went rather rapidly from non-intensive egg production cage-free. 90's was the first wave of this, and then there was a bigger push to industralize and move to cages in the 00's. I'm hopeful about work in China creating positive changes for laying hens.
I like the style of promoting this conversation! Thanks for starting it.
A few additional points that might be useful.
A few points that might be helpful.
Overall, my personal perspective, and I do work on corporate commitments, they still seems like a good bet. Due to the combination of impact on animals in near/medium term, increasing the competence of campaigning organisations and embedding animal welfare policy within food companies.
Thanks, the report this year will be coming out a bit later due to another big project being released imminently.
It is promising seeing that the cumulative results from previous years continue to increase. For example: the 2023 cumulative when from 89% at the time of the report to now being 93%.
Thanks for the suggestions, I will mention them to the team.
Sure
Thanks for writing this, this is also something I have been thinking about and you've expressed it more eloquently.
One thing I have thought might be useful is at times showing restraint with job titling. I've observed cases where people have had a title for example Director in a small org or growing org, and in a larger org this role might be a coordinator, lead, admin.
I've thought at times this doesn't necessarily set people up for long term career success as the logical career step in terms of skills and growth, or a career shift, often is associated with a lower sounding title. Which I think decreases motivation to take on these roles.
At the same time I have seen people, including myself, take a decrease in salary and title, in order to shift careers and move forward.
Thanks for the additional insight.
I think you are in a better position to see what is needed. How I would think about this is what leverage do your opponents to these asks have and if you think your actions would be powerful enough to overcome them.
Good luck on the next phase!
Glad to hear it was helpful. I think they are planning to do another piece of research that will incorporate this as well. Awesome organisation.
This is a great write up! Thanks for sharing it!
I'm curious how you see this aspect playing out?
I think there is a difference between radical actions and radical asks. If a radical action is asking for a country to immediately stop eating meat, the ask and action are generally considered easy to write off and dismiss as being unrealistic. I think this is often a default view of animal activists. Radical actions (and the threat of them) with a reasonable ask, ie cage-free campaigns, are more difficult to be dismissed.
The issues you chose to focus on from my perspective, seem quite reasonable. Are you considering incorporating more radical actions into your future plans?
If I get it right, your thoughts are how do we mitigate costs, limit logistics and provide better access to major organisations and funders.
I'm excited about and supportive of how AVA has developed regional conferences. I attended the Asia AVA and noticed that numerous funders from other parts of the world were in attendance as well as staff from major organisations. I think the regional events provide a number of other pluses that AVA Africa pretty much say themselves.
Many funders I've spoken to have a genuine interest in supporting and growing animal protection work in other parts of the world and I can imagine that their attendance will continue and probably grow at these regional events. I also see potential, that these regional events, might inspire future funders in each region, something I see as important as we continue to grow this work.
I can see that LA might not be the best place if we are looking at a global event, concerns about the scholarship progress and your burning desire to do great things for animals. I also think that the addition of the regional conferences is a fantastic step in improving accessibility for organisations to meet, co-create, build community and fundraise.
***
In your post and subsequent comments I sense dissatisfaction with the scholarship process and that your primary goal of attending AVA US is to access funders. I realise you are posting from an anonymous account, so maybe you already do this, but if not. Post about the work your organisation is doing here and on FAST. I'm sure people would love to hear about it. If you haven't presented at a regional AVA summit or a conference like CARE I think might be a great thing to do.