November 2019: Animal Welfare Fund Grants

Payout Date: November 22, 2019

Total grants: USD 415,000

Number of grantees: 9

Contents

Introduction

The Animal Welfare Fund has recommended 9 grants totalling $415K:

  • Crustacean Compassion: $10K
  • Rethink Priorities: $135K
  • Plant Dining Partnerships: $40K
  • Jakarta Animal Aid Network: $20K
  • Sinergia: $35K
  • Wild Animal Initiative: $85K
  • Forgotten Animals: $30K
  • Fair Fish International: $20K
  • Faunalytics: $40K

Plant Dining Partnerships - $40k

Campaigns to further stock plant-based options at major selling points. Plant Dining Partnerships (PDP) is a new group that focuses on increasing the range of plant-based options at important points of the foodservice industry. We think they have concrete and reasonable plans to target several major chains and many foodservice providers with campaign tactics such as petitions, social media interactions, and garnered media coverage. We find it appealing that key PDP staff have considerable relevant experience and domain knowledge from their previous corporate campaign work with The Humane League. Overall, we see PDP’s approach and specific focus as a valuable addition to the movement’s overall institutional campaign efforts.

Forgotten Animals - $30K

To begin farm animal welfare outreach in Russia’s largest farming regions. Russia has the world’s fifth-largest population of farmed land animals (about 830M alive at any time), but only very limited farm animal welfare work. This grant supports Russian animal advocate Tatyana Balandina to train with a European farm animal welfare group and begin outreach to producers and government on the importance of animal welfare. In particular, she plans to prepare an economic analysis making the case for reform and attend industry exhibitions to perform outreach with producers.

Jakarta Animal Aid Network - $20K

Supporting farmed animal advocacy in Indonesia. Many analyses cite Indonesia as one of the globe’s most important emerging markets, and in terms of number of farmed animals, Indonesia may only trail China and India. Similarly, Indonesia is probably in the top 10 countries in terms of total animal products consumed. Despite this, the country has very little organized factory farming advocacy. Jakarta Animal Aid Network is one of the only exceptions, and they’re interested in becoming one of the first Indonesian groups to join the Open Wing Alliance. We are excited that this group has an interest in completing corporate outreach, as well as investigations, and we are happy to offer support for them to further focus upon and implement farmed animal advocacy tactics.

Crustacean Compassion - $10K

Campaign seeking protection of crustaceans under UK Animal Welfare Act. This all-volunteer group is pursuing a narrow but important goal: to extend the legal protections of the UK Animal Welfare Act to decapod crustaceans like crabs and lobsters. They believe that Brexit may create an opportunity to do this, given the UK government is reconsidering what its animal welfare laws will be once EU directives cease to apply. They’ve already organized a public petition and open letter by 56 scientists, lawyers, and celebrities in support of the move.

Although we can’t be sure that crustaceans are sentient, their huge numbers — perhaps 250-600B farmed globally every year — create the potential for huge suffering if they are. We view this grant as a pilot to test Crustacean Compassion’s ability to make good use of funding.

Faunalytics - $40K

To support two new studies. Faunalytics aims to empower animal advocates with access to the research, analysis, strategies, and messages that can help them maximise their effectiveness in reducing animal suffering. We hope that their proposed new studies will provide advocates with useful data and actionable recommendations in high-priority areas such as fish and chicken welfare (Study: Reducing Fish and Chicken Suffering) and advocacy in low- and middle-income countries (Study: Cultural Barriers and Supports to the Reduction of Animal Product Consumption).

Sinergia Animal - $35K

Reducing the suffering and consumption of farmed animals in promising but neglected countries in the global south. Singeria Animal have contributed to many corporate cage-free commitments, and have been instrumental in securing a cage-free commitment from the hamburger chain Carl's Jr. (in Chile) and French retailer Carrefour (in Argentina). We hope this funding will allow Sinergia Animal to further expand their work into the global south, focusing especially on countries lacking in farmed animal advocacy organizations.

Fair Fish International - $20K

General support. Fair Fish International has been involved in establishing a database (FishEthoBase) to make available all ethological knowledge on fish in the wild and in captivity, with a focus on improving fish welfare in aquaculture. Farmed fish welfare is a priority for effective animal advocacy given the likelihood that farmed fish suffering is very large in scale, the neglectedness of the issue (even within farmed animal advocacy), and the tractability of interventions. We’re excited about Fair Fish International’s research and its potential for improving the welfare of farmed fish.

Wild Animal Initiative - $85K

Research to improve understanding of wild animal lives and identify tractable interventions to help them. In recent years, interest in and concern about wild animal suffering have grown significantly. Nonetheless, there are empirical uncertainties that ought to be addressed with research before widespread action is taken. Wild Animal Initiative aims to grow welfare biology as a field, to increase the quality of research on this topic, and to reduce uncertainty around the cost-effectiveness of near-term interventions that address wild animal suffering.

Rethink Priorities - $135K

Research to help farmed and wild animals. Rethink Priorities focuses on conducting empirical research on neglected causes. Following up on our previous grants to Rethink Priorities, we are continuing to provide funding for their animal welfare focused research in 2019 and 2020. With this additional funding, they plan to research and analyze (i) policy opportunities in and outside of ballot measures (in and outside the US), (ii) multiple case studies to better understand wild animal lives, (iii) provide next steps for invertebrate welfare as a cause area and search for actionable interventions, (iv) quantify the number of vertebrates affected by humans that haven’t been previously enumerated, and (v) run surveys to better understand public attitudes around helping animals.