The Open Philanthropy Project awarded a grant of $1,364,000 to Humane Society International (HSI) to support five projects to improve farm animal welfare, primarily in East Asia. HSI is an animal advocacy organization that engages in a variety of activities, including campaigning for food-industry corporations to choose suppliers who follow or adopt more humane farming practices. This grant falls within Open Philanthropy’s work on farm animal welfare.
The projects this grant will support include:
- Re-granting to local East Asian groups that HSI has worked with on farm animal welfare campaigns, particularly in Indonesia
- Hiring supply chain consultants to work within major Asian food companies and a government agency to improve farm animal welfare
- Funding Asia Research & Engagement to support Ben McCarron, an expert in investor engagement, to work with institutional investors and banks to promote farm animal welfare in Asia
- Funding corporate outreach on cage-free egg and crate-free pork production in Japan and South Korea
- Funding travel and part-time consultants to engage with decision-makers at the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) to improve global animal welfare standards
Open Philanthropy hopes that this grant will lay the groundwork for future successful corporate advocacy on farm animal welfare in East Asia, where most of the world’s farm animals live, and potentially influence the only global animal welfare standards.