FarmKind and ACE Are a Self-Promotion Loop. Here's Why Donors Shouldn't Trust Them.
Accurate as of: Jul 5, 2026
FarmKind is an organization that recommends animal charities. Although FarmKind markets itself as a "fully independent" operation, this is a misleading claim: FarmKind has an explicit policy to only recommend charities that have been recommended by Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE), meaning they often promote the same information. The result of this is a system in which inaccurate information is promoted by two organizations that donors believe are independent from one another.
ACE and FarmKind Promoting Inaccurate Information
Disbudding is a procedure that involves removing an animal's horn tissue before it grows into full horns. Accordingly, only animals that grow horns can be disbudded.
In 2024, both ACE and FarmKind credited a charity for saving hundreds of thousands of pigs from undergoing disbudding.
The only problem? Pigs do not grow horns, making it anatomically impossible to disbud a pig.
Upon confrontation, the charity credited for saving pigs from disbudding claimed they had meant a different procedure. But this actually highlights the core problem with FarmKind. They claim to be "fully independent," but somehow both ACE and FarmKind made the same error, and presented it to donors.
In another instance, both ACE and FarmKind credited that same charity for getting JBS (Brazil's largest meat company) to stop ear notching pigs by 2023. However, JBS never committed to this, and even the charity credited for this policy change admits this.
FarmKind's Co-Founder Defends Exaggerated Cost-Effectiveness Claims
Another troubling aspect of FarmKind is that its co-founder, Aidan Alexander, has publicly defended the use of exaggerated cost-effectiveness claims.
This occurred when criticisms were made about the marketing claims of a FarmKind-recommended charity, which had claimed that "Every $1 you donate will spare 1,770 piglets from painful mutilations":
In reaction to the criticism, Alexander acknowledged:
"It's pretty safe to assume that the reality of most charities' cost-effectiveness is less than they claim."
But despite acknowledging this, Alexander argued that it is not deceptive to advertise cost-effectiveness claims as guarantees. In Alexander's own words:
"This isn't deception — it's good communication. You can quibble that maybe charities should say 'may' or 'could' instead of 'will.' Fine. But to characterize it as a wilful deception is mistaken. If charities only spoke the way some people on the forum wish they would, they would get a fraction of the attention, a fraction of the donations, and be able to have a fraction of the impact."
In short, FarmKind's co-founder acknowledges that charities' real cost-effectiveness is generally less than they claim, but still defends advertising cost-effectiveness estimates as guarantees. His reason? It leads to more donations, attention, and impact.
This mindset is reflected in FarmKind's advertising, where they market speculative cost-effectiveness estimates in a misleading way:
This leads us to our final topic: the FarmKind-ACE self-promotion loop.
The FarmKind-ACE Self-Promotion Loop
FarmKind has an explicit policy to only recommend charities that have already been recommended by ACE.
This means that when FarmKind endorses a charity, ACE gains credibility, since FarmKind is validating ACE's past recommendations. And when ACE endorses FarmKind, FarmKind gains credibility, which in turn allows FarmKind to further enhance ACE's reputation:
It's a self-promotion loop that looks like neutral endorsement because FarmKind markets itself as a "fully independent" operation:
Overall, FarmKind is just another organization in the Effective Altruism (EA) movement's self-promotion ecosystem, in which heavily intertwined organizations market themselves as independent while they promote one another's interests.
To receive updates when we publish new articles, subscribe to our newsletter below for free.
Related Articles
Why ACE's Metrics Are Not Grounded in Reality
ACE advertises metrics that tell donors they can have a massive impact. Unfortunately, these metrics are not grounded in reality.
$1 to Save Billions of Lives? The Fantasy Math Behind Effective Altruism
Any metric can be calculated by using fantasy math, and that's what EA is built on.
Animal Charity Evaluators Knowingly Uses False Data
A metric is only as good as its underlying data, and that's why ACE's use of knowingly false data is quite concerning.
Charity Evaluators Are Incentivized to Lie About Impact Metrics
As a whole, charity evaluators that publish impact metrics are structurally incentivized to exaggerate. This means that in many cases the metrics are marketing material rather than objective analysis.
ACE Hides Evidence, Resulting in Unfalsifiable Metrics
When ACE hides evidence, their metrics become unfalsifiable. And while this is good for ACE, it is bad for donors.
Former ACE Employees Accuse Them of Bias
Ex-ACE employees have raised concerns about the fairness of Animal Charity Evaluators. Are these concerns legitimate?
ACE Credits Charities for Policy Changes They Didn't Cause
Every year, thousands of institutions announce policies. ACE finds these policies, and credits charities for them.
References
Key Quote: "Can my charity be considered for recommendation? At this time, only charities that have at some point been recommended by Animal Charity Evaluators are eligible for consideration. We will update our recommendations periodically and will reach out to eligible charities at this time, so there's no need to get in proactively."
See Cell J12 and Cell AA12