(highlight:: Factory Farming is not just an animal issue
Key takeaways:
• The speaker moved to London to study journalism and worked for an investigative agency that focused on factory farming.
• The speaker witnessed the slaughter of various animal species and saw the negative impact of factory farming on the environment.
• Engaging in the fight against factory farming can also address social justice issues and benefit humans.
• There is a misconception that choosing to help animals disregards the impact on humans and other communities.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
And after that, I moved to London and I decided to study journalism. I did a master's degree in journalism. And when I finished, I started working for an investigative agency that provided services to many different NGOs, as you heard from my bio. And most of these assignments were about factory farming. So I saw many factory farms and I think I saw most species being slaughtered as well. I've been to many slaughterhouses. So that, of course, changed my life forever. I didn't know anything about factory farming before I started doing this work. And it was truly shocking and heartbreaking. But I also saw many other problems related to factory farming. So I saw vast amounts of land being deforsted in Latin America to grow grains, to feed animals. And I also visited many indigenous communities and communities of small farmers who were deeply harmed by crop production as well.
Speaker 3
That is related to livestock.
Speaker 1
So for me, it became very clear that when you decide to fight factory farming, you will be helping animals, but you will also be fighting many other social justice problems or issues. So yeah, for me, you can make a huge difference when you choose this cause to work with.
Speaker 2
I feel like that's often a misconception actually that we're choosing animals to help animals over humans when actually so many of the animal caused issues like deforestation for Feed or the environment that the workers in or, like you say, affecting indigenous communities. I feel like often those areas aren't as clear from the animal space.)
- Time 0:04:28
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(highlight:: Maintaining Optimism in Animal Advocacy
Key takeaways:
• Believing in the ability to create change is crucial for success in this work.
• The process of advancing the theory of change is still in its early stages.
• Efforts to secure corporate commitments have been successful, but implementation remains a challenge.
• The behavior of companies and the impact on other species is uncertain.
• There is a significant amount of work still to be done in the future.
• Remaining optimistic and persistent is essential for long-term success.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
And do you feel like you have a sense of an end game with synergy animal? How far it advances your theory of change expand?
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'm usually a very optimistic person and I think you have to be optimistic when you're doing this type of work. If you don't believe you are going to create change, you will never get there. That's a very important mindset. But I do think that we are at the very beginning of it. We still have a lot of work to do. And when we look at, for example, K-3 corporate commitments, for example, we are being able to secure these commitments. But we also know that we will have to work quite a bit to make them be implemented. So it's the very beginning. It's very hard to predict how companies will behave. And then we have all the other species as well. Here we are only talking about lany hands. But what about all the other species, including fish? So I think there is a lot of work to do. I'm very excited to see the progress we are being able to achieve. But I think we have to remain optimistic, but also very persistent. I think we will have to keep working on this for many, many years.)
- Time 0:16:10
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(highlight:: Misconceptions about the Meaning of Cage-Free Eggs in Asia
Key takeaways:
• Consumer research shows that consumers in Asia have misconceptions about cage free eggs and need education on why cage free is better for animals.
• Cage free organizations focus on ending cages and fighting against animal product consumption, rather than promoting cage free eggs.
• The misconceptions in Asia include beliefs that cage free hens run away, become prey, struggle to find food, and die.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
And also like when when we conduct consumer research, we also see that, for example, we are a vegan organization. So we don't we don't promote the consumption of cage free eggs. Our messaging is more that cages are cruel and they need to end and fight people not to consume animal products at the same time. But what we learned is that especially in Asia, for example, consumers don't know they don't know what cage free means. Right. And they want to learn more about why cage free would be better for animals. And they also have like a lot of misconceptions, for example, they believe that cage free hands will be totally free. They run away. They would be cute predators or they won't find food and they will start to that. So there's a lot of education work to do. And that of course makes our our work more challenging.)
- Time 0:32:56
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