Cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns for chicken welfare

By Vasco Grilo🔸 @ 2024-11-29T16:22 (+58)

The views expressed here are my own, not those of my employers or people who provided feedback.

Summary

• I estimate broiler welfare and cage-free corporate campaigns increase welfare per living time by 92.9 % and 80.4 %, which are not far from the increase of 100 % that would be obtained for improved conditions respecting neutral lives. Again:
  • Depending on assumptions, hens in cage-free aviaries, and broilers in a reformed scenario may have positive or negative lives.
  • I would say at least chickens’ lives can become positive over the next few decades in some animal-friendly countries.
• I conclude broiler welfare and cage-free campaigns are:
  • 168 and 462 times as cost-effective as GiveWell’s top charities, i.e., way more.
  • 0.261 % and 0.718 % as cost-effective as Shrimp Welfare Project’s Humane Slaughter Initiative, i.e., way less.
• According to my results, cage-free campaigns are 2.75 times as cost-effective as broiler welfare campaigns, which I believe is less than commonly imagined. I imagine alternative reasonable assumptions could lead to cage-free campaigns being less cost-effective than broiler welfare campaigns, as many of the inputs are very uncertain.

Introduction

I have previously estimated the cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns for chicken welfare. In this post, I improve on my last estimate:

• Presenting results for broiler welfare and cage-free campaigns, instead of relying on a single estimate of the chicken-years improved per $ respecting both, and an improvement in welfare regarding broilers.
• Using my updated intensity of disabling pain (10 % as high as before).
• Adjusting upwards the “conservative” time broilers and hens spend in pain estimated by WFP.
• Accounting for the welfare from pleasure.
• Considering changes in the number of animals required to maintain supply.

Methods

Overview

I estimate the cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns for chicken welfare in disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) per $ multiplying:

• The chicken-years improved per $.
• The increase in animal quality-adjusted life years (AQALYs) per chicken-year improved.
• The supply of animal products per living time in the improved conditions as a fraction of that in the original conditions, thus considering changes in the number of animals required to maintain supply.
• The benefits of 1 AQALY in averted DALYs.

I also express the cost-effectiveness of the campaigns as a fraction of my estimate:

• For GiveWell’s top charities of 0.00994 DALY/$.
• For Shrimp Welfare Project’s Humane Slaughter Initiative of 431 DALY/$, which already relies on my updated intensity of disabling pain.
• For corporate campaigns for chicken welfare in my last analysis of 15.0 DALY/$.

Chicken-years improved per $

I set the chicken-years improved per $ for broiler welfare and cage-free campaigns to 3.00 (= 15*1/5) and 10.8 chicken-year/$ (= 54*1/5), which are the product between:

• Saulius Šimčikas’ estimates of 15 and 54 chicken-year/$.
• An adjustment factor of 1/5, since Open Philanthropy thinks “the marginal FAW [farmed animal welfare] funding opportunity is ~1/5th as cost-effective as the average from Saulius’ analysis [which is linked just above]”.

Ideally, one would rerun Saulius’ analysis to get updated estimates.

Increase in AQALYs per chicken-year improved

I calculate the increase in AQALYs per chicken-year improved for:

• Broiler welfare campaigns from the difference between the welfare per living time of broilers in a reformed and convention scenario.
• Cage-free campaigns from the difference between the welfare per living time of hens in conventional cages and cage-free aviaries.

I compute the welfare per living time adding that from pain and pleasure.

I determine the (negative) welfare from pain from the negative of the sum of the contributions of the 4 categories of pain defined by the Welfare Footprint Project (WFP), annoying, hurtful, disabling and excruciating pain. I determine each of the contributions in AQALYs from the product between:

• The intensity of the pain as a fraction of that of a practically maximally happy life^[1].

• Time in the pain in years.

For the pain intensities, I suppose:

• Annoying pain is 10 % as intense as a practically maximally happy life, such that 10 days (= 1/0.1) of annoying pain neutralise 1 day of a practically maximally happy life.
• Hurtful pain is as intense as a practically maximally happy life.
• Disabling pain is 10 times as intense as a practically maximally happy life.
• Excruciating pain is 100 k times as intense as a practically maximally happy life.

My assumptions for the pain intensities imply each of the following individually neutralise 1 day of a practically maximally happy life:

• 10 days of annoying pain.
• 1 day of hurtful pain.
• 2.40 h (= 24/10) of disabling pain.
• 0.864 s (= 24*60^2/(100*10^3)) of excruciating pain.

For the time in pain and living time, I use WFP’s data on broilers and hens. Cynthia Schuck-Paim, WFP’s research director, clarified the time in pain reported by WFP excludes 11 welfare issues of broilers and their breeders, and 17 of layers and their breeders. In addition, Cynthia noted accounting for the neglected welfare issues would increase the time in pain in the baseline conditions more than in the improved conditions. WFP produced their current estimates with the main goal of ensuring the welfare reforms are beneficial, not quantifying the time in pain as accurately as possible. This accurate quantification is the subject of 2 books WFP is working on. Cynthia said WFP’s current estimates are likely to account for most of the suffering. I speculate their estimates for the baseline conditions encompass 2/3 of the time in pain, so I multiply them by 1.5 (= 1/(2/3)), and those of the improved conditions by 1.25 (= (1 + 1.5)/2).

I set the welfare from pleasure to the product between:

• The lifetime minus 8 h/d of null welfare minus the sum of the time in hurtful, disabling and excruciating pain.
• The intensity of hurtful pain.

Supply of animal products per living time in the improved conditions as a fraction of that in the original conditions

I use the following supply of animal products per living time in the improved conditions as a fraction of that in the original conditions:

• For broiler welfare campaigns, 79.5 % (= 44.5/56). I get this from the ratio between the living time of broilers in a conventional and reformed scenario of 44.5 (= (42 + 47)/2) and 56 days, as the slaughter weight is the same in both conditions. According to WFP:
  • “average slaughter weight of broilers in the EU and the US is, respectively, 2.5 Kg and 2.9 Kg, reached at 42 and 47 days”. I take the mean of these.
  • “For the reformed scenario, represented by the use of a slower-growing strain, we assumed an average ADG of 45-46 g/day, hence that the same slaughter weight would be reached in approximately 56 days”.
• For cage-free campaigns, 94 % (= (0.92 + 0.96)/2). I get this from the mean between ChatGPT’s and Claude’s guesses for the ratio between the eggs per hen-year of hens in cage-free aviaries and conventional cages of 92 % and 96 %.

Benefits of 1 AQALY in averted DALYs

I stipulate an increase of 1 AQALY in chickens is as good as averting 0.332 DALYs, given Rethink Priorities’ median welfare range of chickens of 0.332.

Results

Welfare per living time

Cost-effectiveness

Discussion

Welfare per living time

I estimate broiler welfare and cage-free campaigns increase welfare per living time by 92.9 % and 80.4 %, which are not far from the increase of 100 % that would be obtained for improved conditions respecting neutral lives. Again:

• Depending on assumptions, hens in cage-free aviaries, and broilers in a reformed scenario may have positive or negative lives.
• I would say at least chickens’ lives can become positive over the next few decades in some animal-friendly countries.

Cost-effectiveness

I conclude broiler welfare and cage-free campaigns are:

• 168 and 462 times as cost-effective as GiveWell’s top charities, i.e., way more.
• 0.261 % and 0.718 % as cost-effective as Shrimp Welfare Project’s Humane Slaughter Initiative, i.e., way less.

• 11.1 % and 30.6 % as cost-effective as my last estimate of the cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns for chicken welfare. With my past intensity of disabling pain, 10 times as high as my current one, broiler welfare and cage-free campaigns are 37.0 % and 108 % as cost-effective as my last estimate of the cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns for chicken welfare^[2].

According to my results, cage-free campaigns are 2.75 times as cost-effective as broiler welfare campaigns, which I believe is less than commonly imagined. I imagine alternative reasonable assumptions could lead to cage-free campaigns being less cost-effective than broiler welfare campaigns, as many of the inputs are very uncertain.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Cynthia Schuck-Paim, Martin Gould, Michael St. Jules, and Saulius Šimčikas for feedback on some of the inputs^[3]. Thanks to Saulius for feedback on the draft.

1. ^{^}

    The welfare per time of the practically maximally happy life is much lower than that of the maximally happy instant. I think the welfare of a practically maximally happy life is only slightly larger than that of a fully healthy life.

2. ^{^}

    I estimated this by multiplying by 10 the intensity of disabling pain.

3. ^{^}

    I ordered the names alphabetically.