Summary
At FWI, our vision is to implement multiple projects, with a particular focus on lower- and middle-income countries, while ensuring they meet our thresholds for cost-effectiveness, scalability, and evidence-based impact. India is the first country where we are putting this vision into action.
Although our current program is promising, it has not yet reached the thresholds to warrant broader scaling. Our 2026 Goal is to have developed a program that surpasses these thresholds, either by improving our existing farm program or by developing new interventions, such as satellite imagery and feed fortification.
We also outline our key priorities for 2025 and share updates on our funding outlook.
Note that this post primarily looks ahead rather than reflecting on the past. Our usual year-in-review post, where we reflect back on our annual progress, will be published in January.
Our 2026 (Two-Year) Goal
Earlier this year, with the help of the pro-animal consulting firm Know Your Elephants, we formalized our vision for FWI’s future:
FWI is running projects at scale in multiple contexts, particularly lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs), that are cost-effective and evidence-based.
We prioritize LMICs for the following reasons:
They tend to have the highest numbers of farmed fishes. For instance, ~90% of farmed fishes live in Asia, with more than half of them in China (though which is now considered by the World Bank to be an upper-middle-income country).
Despite their large share of global production, these countries are largely neglected by the animal advocacy movement.
Given our experience in India, we believe FWI is unusually well-positioned to operate programs effectively in these contexts.
Our vision is that India, currently our primary focus, will serve as the first of many countries where we establish impactful programs. However, before expanding beyond India—and China, where we operate a smaller field-building project—we believe it is crucial to first achieve a sufficient standard of quality in our current program in India, a standard we have yet to fully attain, as previously discussed. Specifically, in line with our vision statement above, we’ve defined the following minimum thresholds to determine whether a program warrants significant scaling:
The program is cost-effective: It should have a projected cost-effectiveness of at least 20 fishes helped per dollar. (Ideally, we would eventually include a measure of magnitude here, such as an assessment completed by the Welfare Footprint Project. However, we have not prioritized this yet, largely due to lacking sufficient data.)
The program is scalable: It should be able to reach over a thousand farms—either through direct visits or an upstream approach—with per-fish costs decreasing as scale increases. It should also have a scaling mechanism better than non-targeted farm visits.
The program is evidence-based: It should be efficacy-tested, field-tested, and have a rigorous monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan in place.
These bring us to our 2026 (Two-Year) Primary Goal: Have developed and validated a program that meets our minimum thresholds for cost-effectiveness, scalability, and evidence-based impact.
If we achieve this goal, we will have demonstrated the potential of our model of creating effective interventions in contexts like India. This would position us to begin establishing an on-the-ground program in another country, while our first program(s) continue to operate in India. And hopefully, given the lessons we learned in India, we will be able to operate all the more effectively in this next country!
If we do not achieve this goal and its corresponding minimum thresholds, we intend to seriously reevaluate our organization. We’re not totally sure what that looks like right now, but failure here would likely mean that our theories of change are not sufficiently good to make changes in the (admittedly challenging!) contexts where we operate.
Comparing our Current Program to Minimum Scaling Thresholds
The program we currently run in India, called the Alliance For Responsible Aquaculture (ARA), is a farm-to-farm program that relies on two core components:
Farmer commitments to maintain good water quality and uphold stocking density caps, and
Regular monthly staff visits to monitor farm conditions and give corrective actions.
Our Program Associate, Ravi Teja, takes a water sample at an ARA farm. From this sample we will assess dissolved oxygen and ammonia levels at our lab—two of the key water quality parameters we monitor.
The table below evaluates the current status of the ARA program against our established minimum thresholds:
| Program Minimum Threshold | Current Status |
Cost-Effective | Projected cost-effectiveness of at least 20 fishes per dollar. | As of this publication, the ARA currently helps ~7 fishes per dollar. We are still seeking to develop program components that would increase our projected cost-effectiveness. |
Scalable | The program is capable of reaching at least 1,000 farms, reducing per-fish costs with scale due to its more effective scaling mechanism compared to non-targeted farm visits. | The ARA currently relies on non-targeted farm visits, which could theoretically reach 1,000 farms with significant effort. However, this approach results in costs that scale linearly and do not decrease with expansion. |
Evidence-Based | The program should be efficacy-tested, field-tested, and have a rigorous monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan in place. | When we began the ARA, our approach to evidence was less rigorous than it is now. While we have since developed monitoring systems, we have yet to conduct a thorough outcome or impact assessment, or establish a comprehensive M&E plan. |
We believe the ARA—our primary avenue for helping fishes right now—is a promising, and certainly unique, program. However, it does not currently meet the minimum thresholds we have to warrant significant scaling. For this reason, in 2025, we will prioritize programmatic improvements, such as exploring predictive models for water quality levels and evaluating the effectiveness of our theory of change. This will also involve conducting an outcomes assessment of our water quality corrective actions. These improvements aim to refine the program to align with and achieve our 2026 Goal.
The ARA is not, however, our only avenue to achieve this goal. We are also currently heavily investing in R&D, and will continue to do so in 2025, to develop new programs for helping fishes in India. These initiatives—including remote water quality monitoring, feed fortification, pre-slaughter stunning, and more—are discussed in detail in the following section.
Key Priorities for 2025
Our highest-level priority in 2025 is to develop a program that meets our minimum program thresholds. This is reflected across our work in our various departments:
Research & Development (India)
In this department, we develop new interventions for helping fishes. Our R&D priorities for 2025 are as follows:
Remote water quality monitoring (e.g. satellite imagery): In 2024, we conducted a proof-of-concept study to assess the viability of using satellite imagery to remotely monitor water quality. The results of that study were encouraging, and we are now looking to further proceed with this technology. We may also explore using drones to monitor water quality, particularly if it seems that satellites do not yield sufficiently accurate data.
Feed fortification study: In 2024, we also conducted an efficacy study assessing whether fortified feed improves fish welfare under controlled conditions, and are now awaiting the findings. If they are positive, we will run a field study in 2025 to evaluate whether feed fortification improves welfare in real-world conditions.
Other species and/or life stages: While we primarily work with Indian major carp at a grow-out stage, in 2025 we are expecting to explore other species and other life stages in the Indian aquaculture industry. This could involve making changes in rearing ponds, for instance, or working on behalf of a different species like pangasius catfish.
Welfare assessment protocol: In 2025, we plan to field-test a welfare assessment protocol designed to provide deeper insights into the welfare conditions of the farmed fishes we support. This tool is expected to play a critical role in monitoring and evaluating the impacts of our programs. Although we initially intended to complete this project in 2024, unforeseen delays have shifted the timeline: Field-testing is now expected to begin in December 2024 and will likely extend into 2025.
Pre-slaughter stunning: In early 2025, we expect to receive the results from several short studies commissioned through our recently released request for proposals (RFP). If the findings are promising, we plan to transition in the latter half of 2025 to either pilot testing or initiating technological development. (Note: While this project is managed internally by our smaller Exploratory Programs Department, it is included here as it broadly aligns with our R&D efforts.)
Programs (India)
Our Programs Department focuses on implementing and improving programs to meet our thresholds. Currently, our primary focus here is the Alliance for Responsible Aquaculture, as discussed in a previous section.
As interventions clear the R&D stages, our Programs team will develop delivery mechanisms and conduct pilot tests. For 2025 and 2026, we thus expect to run two or more of the following programs and pilots:
Alliance for Responsible Aquaculture: Our current program, which we aim to improve throughout 2025 and 2026 to meet our thresholds to scale.
Satellite Imagery Program Pilot: After building a robust model, we will further validate the use of satellites for the remote monitoring of water quality. We expect this pilot to run between Q4 (fourth quarter) 2025 and Q1 2026.
Feed Fortification Pilot: If our efficacy and field studies resolve positively, we will pilot a program around feed fortification as an intervention. This would happen in Q3–Q4 2026.
Policy (India)
In 2025, we will continue our policy work at both the central and state government levels to a) advance policies that promote fish welfare, and b) strengthen support for our on-the-ground operations.
Readers who would like to learn more about our policy work are encouraged to contact us.
China
Our work in China differs from its counterpart in India: Instead of developing programs on the ground, in China we collaborate with NGOs and academics at a higher level to support the growing field of fish welfare there.
In 2025, we will focus on two main priorities:
Hiring a talented China Lead to be our first full-time staff member residing in China. This person will be tasked with leading our operations in China going forward.
Continuing our field-building work, which will include a) developing species-specific standards with ICCAW, b) co-hosting events for aquatic animal welfare, and c) supporting university research.
You can learn more about our specific OKRs for each program area in our publicly viewable and regularly updated 2025 OKRs. You can also learn about the funding breakdown for each of these areas in our 2025 Budget.
We are Fundraising Again
As we are mindful that we operate in a funding-constrained movement, we generally try to raise only the money we need. This means that we stop seeking large donations once our funding gap is filled, which we did this year as of April 2024.
With our plans now published here for next year, we are again actively seeking donations—both large and small—to fill our funding gap. Below are FWI’s current funding gaps as of the date of this post’s publication. We will update these details regularly on our donation page.
Year | Funding Gap (as of November 15, 2024) | |
2025 | $920,000 | $730,000 |
2026 | $970,000 | $970,000 |
Note that our 2026 budget should be considered much more speculative. Once our 2025 funding gap is filled, donors seeking greater certainty about the programs their contributions will support may wish to donate elsewhere. We will communicate the filling of our 2025 gap accordingly.
Note also that this is the first time we are publishing and accepting funds for a two-year budget. Previously, we only accepted donations on a one-year basis (with the exception of our $250,000 grant from Open Philanthropy, which generally operates on two-year funding cycles). We switched to a two-year cycle because we now have greater certainty in our programs and strategies than previously, and want our budgets to reflect this.
If you are interested in donating, feel free to contact us. We welcome all questions you may have—however candid! You can also find some FAQs and further information on our donation page.
We continue to be extremely grateful for all who have supported our work, whether with their money or their time. Thank you for helping us improve the lives of these animals!
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