The End of Animal Farming: How Scientists, Entrepreneurs, and Activists Are Building an Animal-Free Food

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Moral licensing could pose a similar challenge for farmed animal activism. However, there is little reason a priori to expect licensing over consistency in these situations because no clear trends have been shown in the literature. Indeed most animal activists themselves began taking small actions for animals before scaling up their involvement. So overall, the considerations of moral licensing and moral consistency do not seem to be compelling evidence for either the institutional or individual approach. Creswell JW (2009) Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches, 3rd edn. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks Plus, we consistently generate high-profile media coverage, helping to put farm animal welfare into the public eye and onto the political agenda. Banis, Davide (November 27, 2018) "New Book Draws Detailed Roadmap Of How We Can End Animal Farming" Forbes

By creating an alternative solution to the meat industry, such as clean meat — also called “cultured meat” and many other names, as mentioned above — we will be able to make a positive impact on the lives of millions of animals who would otherwise face grim conditions and eventual slaughter. What Is Clean Meat?

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The evidence-based approach is another great feature of his book. For the readers who are not familiar with the concept, Effective Altruism (henceforth EA) is a philosophy and social movement that uses evidence and rationality to find ways to do good more effectively. Taking just a few cells from an animal and growing meat that might become a burger or steak is far more sustainable than breeding millions of animals for slaughter. Not only does the latter practice harm animals and contribute to their suffering, but it’s hard on our natural resources. Animals raised on factory farms come with all types of human hazards, from feces in the meat to harmful hormones and antibiotics. Extreme forms of genetic mutations can also have a negative impact on human health. The institutional approach also implies changing how activists invest their time. Popular grassroots tactics today include handing out leaflets and staging protests in restaurants and grocery stores to encourage individuals to change their diets. Institutional tactics include investing in ‘cell-cultured meat’ and trying to convince corporations to insist on higher welfare standards in their supply chain.

I’m calling clean meat “logical” because it is a solution stemming from technological progress and situational pressure. We can now grow tissue cells without needing the whole animal, and we are in dire need of doing so at a massive scale to reduce and ultimately eliminate the effects of industrial animal agriculture.MFA (2019) Undercover investigations. Mercy for Animals. https://mercyforanimals.org/investigations. Accessed 22 Feb 2019 There are over 100 billion animals in the global food system, taking an enormous collective toll on our health and the environment. In this eye-opening talk, animal advocate and social scientist Jacy Reese makes a compelling argument as to why (and how) we should relegate the factory farming of animals to history's scrap pile. This paper has argued on the basis of empirical and ethical considerations that animal activists should shift some resources from the predominant individual approach to an institutional approach. This shift does not mean forsaking individual change altogether. Footnote 6 For example, in the call to action of an overall institutional-leaning message, such as, ‘End factory farming’, one can discuss individual diet change as one possible action to take, though in some cases activists might prioritize a different call to action, such as supporting a current policy campaign. Similarly, if one is working to change an institution such as a company or government, boycotts can be an important tool in the activist toolbelt to pressure the institution into changing, at least if they are framed as a symbolic action in the service of that targeted goal rather than as a personal choice. Most large-scale activist campaigns and roadmaps incorporate both individual and institutional tactics.

I’ve written before about the horrors involved with factory farming. Animals are treated like objects rather than sentient beings, and unlike objects, they can experience pain, fear, hopelessness, and distress. Piper, Kelsey (15 November 2018). "We could end factory farming this century". Vox . Retrieved 5 August 2019. Norwood B, Murray S (2018) FooDS Food Demand Survey, vol. 5. Oklahoma State University. http://agecon.okstate.edu/files/january%202018.pdf And clean meat is not being made for vegans and vegetarians. That would be redundant since those people have already stopped eating meat. Clean meat is potentially a faster way to offer current meat-consuming public a way to pollute less and to cause much less animal suffering than by eating meat coming from the factory farming and slaughtering process.From vegan food tech founders to animal advocates hard at work, the landscape around animal farming is changing. And like many other political landscapes in American history, there is a fight ahead. The hope is that the fight will build a bridge between humans and advocates. For now, advocates and CEO walk across the bridge on the shoulder of giants—Peter Singer and Tom Regan—to a world more moral than this one. In this new world, there is no animal suffering. Humans care for the billions of animals suffering around us instead of eating them. Will it solve all the problems the world’s animals face? No – but given the sheer volume of animals on factory farms, it comes close. It will also be a huge leap toward educating consumers about what they eat and the plights of factory-farmed animals. However, activists can utilize social pressure for good. One example is the common practice of activists targeting fans of celebrities with Facebook advertisements that tell them the celebrity is vegetarian (Reese, 2016). Activists can even snowball participation in events by advertising them as having large numbers of participants in a self-fulfilling prophecy where the apparent popularity of the event leads to actual popularity (Reese, 2018a, p. 96). Any dependence of individual and institutional changes on each other does not preclude one approach being more effective than the other on the margin. For example, if a small amount of individual change makes institutional change possible, but at least that amount is produced organically without the intervention of deliberate social movement actors, then this is not a reason to favour the individual approach. Activists should of course consider dependencies and act accordingly. See also Carberry et al. ( 2019) on the potential interconnectedness of activists, organizational fields, and corporate managers. The book faced criticism from Current Affairs due to its focus on effective altruism. Nathan J. Robinson wrote: [5]