80,000 Hours's video: 8 - Lewis Bollard on how to end factory farming in our lifetimes

Every year tens of billions of animals are raised in terrible conditions in factory farms before being killed for human consumption. Over the last two years Lewis Bollard – Project Officer for Farm Animal Welfare at the Open Philanthropy Project – has conducted extensive research into the best ways to eliminate animal suffering in farms as soon as possible. This has resulted in $30 million in grants to farm animal advocacy. Transcript and links to learn more on the episode page: https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/lewis-bollard-end-factory-farming/ We covered almost every approach being taken, which ones work, and how individuals can best contribute through their careers. We also had time to venture into a wide range of issues that are less often discussed, including: * Why Lewis thinks insect farming would be worse than the status quo, and whether we should look for ‘humane’ insecticides; * How young people can set themselves up to contribute to scientific research into meat alternatives; * How genetic manipulation of chickens has caused them to suffer much more than their ancestors, but could also be used to make them better off; * Why Lewis is skeptical of vegan advocacy; * Why he doubts that much can be done to tackle factory farming through legal advocacy or electoral politics; * Which species of farm animals is best to focus on first; * Whether fish and crustaceans are conscious, and if so what can be done for them; Originally released September 27th, 2017 **Get this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type 80,000 Hours into your podcasting app.** Check out all our episodes here: https://80000hours.org/podcast/ *The 80,000 Hours podcast is produced by Keiran Harris.*