CHARITY ENTREPRENEURSHIP

  • Incubation Program
    • Incubated Charities
  • Research
    • Charity Ideas
    • Animal Welfare Reports
    • Health Reports
  • About Us
    • Our Track Record
    • Our Team
    • CE Resources
    • Contact
  • Blog
  • Donate
  • Sign up
  • Incubation Program
    • Incubated Charities
  • Research
    • Charity Ideas
    • Animal Welfare Reports
    • Health Reports
  • About Us
    • Our Track Record
    • Our Team
    • CE Resources
    • Contact
  • Blog
  • Donate
  • Sign up

BLOG

Welfare Focused Gene Modification

3/29/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
This report considers gene modification for farmed animals with a focus on improving their welfare
Gene modification is currently used in multiple ways across animal farming. The scale goes from subtle breed selection leading to larger chickens to more dramatic transgenic modifications such as Aquavantage salmon. However, there has been relatively little research or attention paid towards using similar methodologies with a welfare focus. Examples of direct welfare benefits seemingly available through modifications include breeding cows without horns in order to spare them from the painful dehorning process and lobbying for the use of certain more welfare focused breeds. Technologically speaking, many welfare focused interventions seem applicable to animals used in the current system.

One of the biggest weaknesses of this intervention seems to be the potential for negative flow-through effects. For example, working on gene editing for farmed animals could make the occurrence of non-welfare focused gene editing more likely. There is also a potential for backlash, both from consumers who dislike gene modification in food and from those against gene editing in the animal ethics movement. Another weakness is high execution difficulty. As these interventions would be highly dependent on legislation and research, it could be that those working on the intervention would need to wait years for these to progress before being able to make a significant positive difference.

Our preliminary research suggests that gene modification seems to be average in promise compared to other interventions. We expect this to fall in the middle third of our reports.

You can read the report to find out more about the strengths and weaknesses of gene modification focused on animal welfare, as well as what specific interventions we considered.
Picture
read the report

Ask reports

Our priority ask reports focus on what are the particular improvements or changes that can be “asked” for from corporations, governments, or individuals. Going cage free, making dietary changes, and regulating slaughter practices all serve as examples here. Asks are compared based on the strength of the idea (including the evidence base and estimated cost-effectiveness), limiting factors, execution difficulty, and externalities. All of these factors together begin to suggest which asks might be the most effective when combined with a priority animal, country, and approach. However, these ask reports are short summaries of longer unpublished reports and, therefore, even if an ask looks promising this does not necessarily suggest that it will end up being a promising charity once paired with other elements and cross-compared to the other strongest possible charities. It just suggests that it is worth further and deeper investigation from our team. You can see our full planned research process here.

Did you know that CharityEntrepreneurship can help you start
​an effective charity for animals?
If you want to be the first to know when we will start accepting applications (April 2019) to our incubation program, subscribe to our mailing list. ​
SUBCSCRIBE
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    CE RESOURCES

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Animal Research
    Ask Research
    Broad Research
    CE Organization
    CE - Organization
    Corporate Outreach
    Family Planning Research
    How To Run A Charity
    Incubated Charities
    Incubation Program
    Mental Health Research
    Poverty Research
    Preparing To CE
    Reports - Animals
    Research
    Research Process
    Staying Altruistic
    Top Charity Ideas

    Additional Resources

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    August 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    October 2015
    August 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    May 2014
    January 2014

About Us

Charity Entrepreneurship (CE)  is a project of Charity Science Foundation of Canada, a foundation registered in Canada (charity number 80963 6236 RR0001). CE supports its incubated charities through a fiscal sponsorship with Players Philanthropy Fund (Federal Tax ID: 27-6601178), a Maryland charitable trust with federal tax-exempt status as a public charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions to CE are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.
Privacy Policy: ​You can read our Privacy Policy here
Terms of Use: You can read our Terms of Use here

Connect

Contact us

Please use our contact form.