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

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.

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. 

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

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.