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EA - A year of wins for farmed animals by Vasco Grilo
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: A year of wins for farmed animals, published by Vasco Grilo on December 24, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.This is a crosspost for A year of wins for farmed animals, published by Lewis Bollard on 14 December 2023 in Open Philanthropy farm animal welfare research newsletter.It's been a tough year for farmed animals. The European Unionshelved the world's most ambitious farm animal welfare reform proposal, plant-based meat salessagged, and the mediapanned cultivated meat while Italybanned it. But advocates for factory farmed animals still won major gains - here are ten of the biggest:1. Wins for the winged. Advocates won130 new corporate pledges to eliminate cages for hens or the worst abuses of broiler chickens. This progress has now expanded well beyond the West: recent wins include cage-free pledges from the largest Asian restaurantcompany and the largest Indonesianretailer. That's mostly thanks to the work of the 100+ member groups of theOpen Wing Alliance, who now campaign across 67 countries. We estimate that, if fully implemented, pledges secured to date will reduce the suffering of about 800 million layer hens and broiler chickens alive at any time.2. Cages canceled. A fair question has long been whether these pledges will be implemented. So far, they mostly have been:1,157 corporate pledges are now fully implemented, 89% of the pledges that came due by last year. As a result,39% of American hens,60% of European hens, and80% of British hens are now cage-free, up from just6%,41%, and48% respectively a decade ago. There's still a lot more work to do to hold companies accountable to their pledges. But globally 220 million more animals are already out of cages thanks to this work.3. Pigs Supreme. The US Supreme Courtupheld California's Proposition 12, which bans the sale of eggs, pork, and veal from caged animals and their offspring. This ruling also protects seven other similar state laws. Once fully implemented, these laws will collectively require about 700,000 pigs and 80 million hens be raised cage-free. Advocates are now fighting alast-ditch effort by pork producers to overturn the Court's ruling, and have already mustered the support of over210 members of Congress for our side.4. Plant-based policies. Denmarkunveiled the world's first state action plan to promote plant-based eating, including plans to promote plant-based foods in schools and support innovation in alternative proteins. South Koreasaid it would soon unveil one too. The European Parliamentcalled for an EU-wide "action plan for increased EU plant-based protein production and consumption."5. Meaty milestones. For the first time, the COP28 climate summitserved mostly vegetarian meals. The UN Environment Programreleased the first-ever UN report on the potential of alternative proteins. New data showed that only20% of Germans now eat meat every day, down from 34% eight years ago.Half of all US restaurants now offer a plant-based alternative, up from a third five years ago.6. Cultured policymakers. US regulatorsapproved the nation's first sales of cultivated meat. Japan's Prime Ministerpledged support for the nation's cellular agriculture industry. Germanypledged 38M to promote alternative proteins, whileCatalonia (Spain),Israel, andthe UK funded more research. Alternative proteins have now attracted over abillion dollars in public funding committed to research and infrastructure globally.7. Alternative aspirations. Major German retailer Lidlpledged to double the share of its range of proteins that are plant-based by 2030. The second largest Dutch retailer, Jumbo, set a goal for60% of its protein sales to be plant-based by the same year. Both began their efforts by slashing the price of their own plant-based brands to parity with meat. So too did German...
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