Thanks for posting this Allegra! I was actually looking into this the other day and one thing that stopped me from giving as an individual donor was understanding exactly how cost-effective groups working on this are. My general understanding is that traditional humanitarian efforts aren't particularly cost-effective if your goal is to help the most people (I think largely because these efforts raise lots of money through salience and they are not as rigorously designed as GiveWell charities might be - but these might not be true in this case). 

Do you have any information or research into Emergency Response Rooms or other groups working in Sudan on how many people they are helping or lives they are saving? 

Yeah I agree with this. Specifically, I don't think that basically anyone working on cage-free/alt proteins/most pragmatic issues would agree with the statement below (I think approximately everyone thinks we should pursue several effective approaches, not just one). 

A search for the (one) most effective approach. For example it’s not uncommon for advocates to say the movement should converge on one specific approach, such as alt-proteins/cage-free campaigns/legal advocacy/whatever — with an implication that we should significantly discount other approaches.

I also agree with your other comment Thom about timelines. I think talking about theories of victory is much more relevant if you think we can end factory farming in 10 years (which people in Animal Rising do). I think it is more like 75 years away, so it makes less sense to discuss the details (especially when it is hard to make good predictions for things 50+ years away). 

I would +1 to all of the above (and probably in stronger terms!).

Additionally, from yet unpublished research we've done in the UK and also talking to people who work on food policy in the UK government, the number one thing people care about for food right now is cost. So the odds of getting any kind of significant progress to block loads of factory farm expansions and/or close existing ones, which will both increase the cost of food, will be extremely small. For example, Labour's current plan is the weaken planning regulations to allow more chicken sheds to be built (to reduce the cost of food) so for them to do a full U-turn would be a miracle, in my opinion.

I also think these battles will be in a relatively small number of rural constituencies, with relatively small populations, so I don't expect there to be any major impacts on national public opinion. And as Thom says, most people already say they agree with us, despite paying for lots of factory-farmed meat. So I'm unsure if trying to change the number of people who say they don't want factory-farmed products in the UK is even a useful goal (but I also don't know what a better metric might be). 

Thank you for writing this Rose – I think it’s very useful to have some of this discussion in the open and also clearly explained. I’m also a big fan of the way this can be used to gain media and get people involved in animal issues.

However, I disagree on some points, and will explain why below:

1. Your article came across as demeaning to and ignores the great work being done in the movement 

“You don’t get there by doing nothing locally and hoping for the best globally.”

“And perhaps most importantly, it offers no coherent alternative except surrender.”

I think implying that EAs or people who have this critique are surrendering is pretty insulting to all the groups doing great work, in the UK and more broadly. For example, The Humane League UK, Open Cages UK, and Animal Equality UK are all doing great work to get hens out of cages in the UK, improving the living standards of meat chickens, winning legal protections for fish, and much more. They have impacted the lives of literally 500 million meat chickens and helped get tens of millions of hens out of cages each year. 

To me, this seems like a worrying sign of hubris: only thinking the work you’re doing is “radical” enough or addressing the “real” problem. 

2. Stopping new farms could hold back improving the lives of animals

Something you didn’t mention is another aspect people are concerned about: stopping new farms holds back welfare reforms that will tangibly improve the lives of chickens. 

Thanks to the amazing work of groups in the UK, 7 major retailers committed to giving their meat chickens 20% more space. Estimates are that this will improve the lives of 500 million chickens each year, out of the total 1+ billion meat chickens raised in the UK. However, giving chickens 20% more space reduces the number of chickens per shed. If you block the extra floor space needed, which some producers are trying to build, other companies may not give their chickens more space. Or, similarly bad, those companies could source more from abroad, often at lower welfare. That’s not the outcome we want. Ideally, we can work on campaigns that don’t make the work of other animal advocates more challenging, which is why I have some mixed feelings here! 

Of course, you could try to avoid this via not targeting the higher-welfare farms, which I and others have suggested previously. However, I don't think you have clarified your position on blocking planning permission for farms where it is required to make welfare improvements. Anima have made this distinction for their campaign in Poland, for example.

3. Stopping imports, or phasing out factory farming, is not easy nor likely to happen soon

I also don’t think the fur farming example supports your point that “Import restrictions become politically inevitable because they’re supported by the movement we’ve built and aligned with farming interests.” – Imports of fur continue to this day, 25 years after we banned it in the UK.

Farmers say they want equal import standards, but their actual top issues are loosening planning rules so they can build more sheds and fighting inheritance tax. Even now, the UK signs trade deals allowing lower-welfare meat. Getting those laws passed is slow and uncertain –  we can’t assume they’ll follow automatically.

The UK is currently on track to align veterinary standards with the EU, which means the UK loses the ability to block imports from the EU (our main trading partner) as well as some other countries like the US, Canada, Brazil and more I’m not aware of. This doesn’t make me very optimistic that we should pursue strategies that only seem good if we ban imports. Read more about this here.

Similarly, I disagree with:

“Here’s the deepest difference between our approach and the critics’: we actually believe factory farming can end.”

I also believe it can end – we just have very different timelines. It seems like (but correct me if this is wrong) you think this is possible within the next few years? Personally, I would put it around 20-50 years away, given the strength and size of the industry, and the fact that social change always moves more slowly than people expect. Given that this is an industry that has been stable or growing for the past decades, I think there needs to be pretty exceptional evidence if you think it will end in the next few years. 

To be clear, I think it is good to be ambitious and go for big wins. But, I think it has to be moderated with some clear-eyed thinking on what is actually possible, so we don’t spend limited resources on campaigns that have a minisucile chance of winning – like trying to ban factory farming in the UK – and therefore miss a better opportunity to help animals.

4. You overstate how much these wins actually help animals 

Stopping a new farm in the UK might prevent animal farming locally, but I think it’s unlikely that the effects are long-lived. 

You say:

“We are blocking factory farms that raise an average of 1 million birds per year. If that farm would have operated for 30 years, that’s millions of individual lives spared from industrial confinement. It takes years to identify land, secure planning permission, secure financing, and build a new facility. In the meantime, large numbers of animals will be spared a lifetime of suffering.”

I think this is somewhat true, and it is a complicated dynamic. But I don’t think it’s right to say it takes 30 years to scale up imports or production. For example, you might have:

• Farms abroad that operate at 80% capacity, which can easily increase production and export to the UK (and as you note, these will sometimes have worse standards!)
  • Given that there are many countries we import chicken from, with probably thousands of chicken farms each, I think it’s likely that at least some of them have additional capacity to increase production and cover a UK shortage while farms are built in other countries.
• Farms are built overseas in countries that don’t require loads of regulations and red tape. Given that we import chicken meat from countries like Brazil or Thailand, which will have fewer planning regulations, it will be relatively straightforward for them to scale up production (especially if they just add an extra shed to an existing farm).
• Farms in the UK that operate at 80% full capacity (e.g. they have an unused shed), and they will just ramp up to 100% capacity, which will be extremely quick.
• As a comparison to how others are thinking about the duration of impact, Saulius working with Anima used an average 1 year of impact, although he notes this estimate is highly uncertain. 

(Although this is also based on other complex stuff like breeders, hatcheries, catching slots and farms being the right specification for UK buyers). 

Other reasons why imports can easily increase:

• The UK almost doubled its chicken imports from 2012 to 2022.
• Imports make up around 25-35% of all chicken consumption in the UK currently, so it already is a pretty major component.
• In economic terms, the supply of meat is elastic: if the market expects a shortage in one place, prices adjust and other producers find it profitable to produce a bit more. So while I agree the world isn’t perfectly static or efficient, it’s not completely messy either – there are market mechanisms that fill the gaps. The USDA even states it themselves: “improved margins are expected to encourage increased broiler production”

But overall, yes, there might be some period of time where supply is reduced, so prices are increased and demand drops slightly. This would be a good outcome! But this also comes at the cost of animals being in worse conditions – this report found 95% of Britain’s current or potential trade partners have lower farm animal welfare standards than the UK. So, it’s not obvious to me which side wins overall for actually improving the lives of animals. 

Then I think a reasonable question is: is it the best use of our time and energy to be pursuing things that only help animals for a few months or in unclear ways? Especially if it may clash with the work of other advocates?

5. Movement-building is valuable but not self-justifying.
One of this campaign’s strongest points is that “we are building a movement” and changing public consciousness. I totally agree that movement-building is valuable. Every time we get more people to care about factory farming, whether through fighting a local farm proposal or reading a news story about a campaign, that’s a win. Social change does require people power and cultural shifts, and local campaigns can be a catalyst for that. I also agree that these victories energise activists; feeling that “we can win” boosts morale and engagement for future, bigger fights.

However, I would also note that movement-building is only as good as the direction the movement goes. Building a large, passionate movement is a means to an end – the end being less animal suffering. All of the points above make me unsure whether if this is the best thing to build a movement around. To take an extreme example: we’ve seen very large, well-organised movements pushing harmful agendas in politics (e.g. the anti-abortion movement). The mere fact that we “built a movement” doesn’t guarantee we did something positive for the world. 

Overall:

I think we agree on a bunch of stuff: we need to urgently help animals, we should fight it on multiple fronts, and building public support is essential. Where I worry is that stopping one farm might not save the lives we think it does – because those animals appear in someone else’s barn or another country’s statistics, sometimes in worse conditions. Especially if this work makes other animal advocacy campaigns more challenging to win, and it uses our precious time and energy. 

One thing I would be curious to hear from you and other people in AR: What evidence would you have to see to change your mind that this campaign isn’t the best use of your time? I think having a few of these in mind is pretty important.

For example, if I had the following evidence, I would be convinced that this campaign is worthwhile pursuing:

• It doesn’t significantly slow down the improvements to giving chickens farmed for meat in the UK more space (e.g. 80%+ of the farms being blocked aren’t the farms with lower stocking density)
• Most (e.g. 80%+) of the additional imports come from countries with high welfare standards (e.g. Germany, the Netherlands, which are two of our current largest import markets)
• We get a government policy commitment that we would ban imports that don’t meet UK minimum standards and this would happen over the next 5 years
• The price increase / supply time lags are bigger than I expected, e.g. a 5% increase in price due to this campaign or a 3-year time-lag to fill the supply gap 

Most importantly, I appreciate that this discussion is happening! It shows that we are trying to figure out how to make positive change for animals in this complicated and messy world. 

My guess is that the people reading the EA Forum are much less judgmental than the average vegan and generally, there will be a selection effect such that people who are actually willing to think reasonably and be 90% vegan won't be the judgmental ones anyway. So, probably for people here, it's not harmful to recommend people be non-judgmental strict vegans for signalling reasons. 

I love this idea! Some questions from me:

• The likelihood of cultivated meat being approved for sale in the EU?
• How many more (and ideally, which) US states will ban cultivated meat by the end of 2025, 2026 and 2027?
• What percentage of companies will follow through on their 2025 cage-free commitments?
• What percentage of companies will follow through on their 2026 BCC commitments?
• Likelihood of [insert major country here] passing legislation to ban cages
  • I would be keen to see this for the UK and also the EU but that is probably just proximity bias!
  • This could also work for other legislation e.g. banning low-welfare imports, fish stunning, etc
• The likelihood of major [insert country here] retailers committing/following through to plant protein ratios (e.g. 40% of total protein sold being plant-based by 2030)
  • Countries that come to mind for this would be UK, US and European countries like Spain, France, etc.
  • It could also be interesting to have a question on if this leads to additional fish & chicken consumption, if data is available

Some context: I work for an animal welfare-focused foundation and these are some things I've personally been interested in knowing about over the past 1-2 years!

This is great Lizka! Thanks for writing it up and beautifully illustrating it. Relatedly, what do you use for your diagrams? 

Very cool, thanks for doing this! It's a big and neglected topic for sure. 

A few months ago, I actually spent a day looking into farmed frog welfare (so slightly different to what you point at, which is the painful procedures done to wild and farmed frogs). I'll post my exec summary below in case others are interested. You can see the full doc here.

Overall recommendation

Approximately 1 billion frogs are farmed each year for food, and there is a similar number alive on farms at any one time. Despite this, the vast majority of them (93%) are farmed in China, meaning it is very challenging to advocate for ways to improve their lives. The most promising approach would be via targeting US imports of frog legs, which amount to approximately 58-146 million frogs killed per year. However, there are very few organisations working on this and it’s not clear what leverage groups would have to affect US imports or sellers. Overall, I expect that there are more cost-effective ways to help other groups of very populous animals, such as chickens, fish or shrimp. 

Executive Summary

• I estimate there are around 1 billion frogs killed each year for food, with around 950 million alive at any one time.
  • See my summary spreadsheet here for calculations and assumptions around lifespan, mortality, etc.
• FAO statistics suggest that 93% of frogs are farmed in China, 5% in Vietnam and approx 1% in Thailand.
• Overwhelmingly, China is the most important country for frogs but the obvious challenge is that there are very limited ways to affect the Chinese animal industry.
  • This is especially true for frogs as most of them are consumed internally, rather than exported
• That said, the US is a moderate importer of frogs, so there is some scope for advocacy. The size of US imports is approx. 58-146 million frogs killed per year.
  • The vast majority of these (99.9%) are imported as frog legs
• For reference, there are approx. 380 million hens and 1.1 billion broiler chickens alive in the US at any one time.
  • Also for reference, there are 400 million fish alive in the US at any one time and my rough guess is that the US imports an additional 800 million farmed fish per year
• The US import market seems more important than the EU market, as the latter is made up primarily of wild frogs caught in Indonesia, rather than farmed frogs.
  • This rests on the assumption that wild frogs have better lives than farmed frogs, which I feel relatively confident about.
  • See Appendix on EU Imports for more information about the EU
• The data is very limited and poor for most aspects of the frog farming industry so I am very uncertain about key factors like:
  • How long does it take for a frog to reach slaughter weight
    • I’ve seen disagreements between 2 months to 1 year, which would significantly change the number of frogs alive at any one time
  • To what extent are EU imports mostly wild-caught or farmed? Specifically thinking about how much of Indonesia’s frog production which is 80% of EU imports
  • How much of Chinese frogs are exported or consumed internally?
• Ways you could help frogs
  • Support expansion of California-style live import bans to other states and cities (In Defense of Animals secured a ban on live imports of bullfrogs into California in 2023)
    • You could work with wildlife conservation groups that are worried about frog farms spreading diseases like chytrid fungus.
    • This would only be limited to live imports (less than 25% of total weight and approx. 2.5-5% of total frog numbers) - roughly 2-7 million frogs per year.
  • Advocate for federal/state import regulations based on environmental damages, zoonotic diseases and biosecurity
    • E.g. push for stricter biosecurity requirements around frog imports or support requirements for species labelling and origin documentation
      • This would definitely slow the industry down as it’s very informal currently
• My recommendations would be:
  • If interested in exploring some advocacy around US imports, it would be worthwhile to speak with In Defense of Animals and the Bullfrog Action Group which worked on the California Imports Ban
  • Further research (I couldn’t find these very easily)
    • What percentage of US frog imports are live vs frozen?
    • Which states are the largest importers of frog legs?
  • Consider whether frogs are the biggest bang for the buck we can find to help animals or it might be easier and more effective to focus on other highly farmed species e.g. fish, shrimp or chickens.
    • I expect that there are currently much more cost-effective ways to help fish, shrimp or chickens due to existing nonprofit infrastructure, availability of information, non-Chinese markets and leverage over those supply chains.
    • Also, it’s unclear to me who are the right groups to work on frogs (basically no one is working on it now so it would need some effort to get this going)

I haven't seen the data she is referencing but 20% seems way too high - that implies like we spend $50-60M as a movement annually on infighting, which doesn't make any sense at all?

I'm also not sure we should consider organisations fundraising for their own work as infighting - that seems to broaden the definition far further than is useful / what most would consider as infighting.

(I agree the Animal Rising campaign against RSPCA is both regrettable and an example of genuine infighting but I think that's the most major case recently and I can't imagine there has been more than $0.5-1M spent on it collectively).

In terms of collaboration, some recent positive examples:

• ICAW & Animal Activism Collective doing grassroots cage-free work together
• Revolutionist's Night & VARC in the UK being a nice crossover of people from the more grassroots-y + NGO sides of the animal movement
• Eva from Pax Fauna and Dave CH talking about AVA about the benefits of grassroots and corporate work together
• Wayne Tsuing and Lewis Bollard doing a talk at AVA about reconciling each other approaches to help animals and showing respect for each other

If you're going to make big claims like the one below, IMO you should give specific examples and evidence rather than talking negatively about a large set of organisations.

I have a lot of concerns about how much money is being pumped in to animal welfare orgs with seemingly very little real-world impact coming out - not the case for every org of course, but quite a few.