Tag: The Animal Agriculture Alliance

The Animal Agriculture Alliance has opened registration for its 2024 Stakeholders Summit, themed “Ready, Set, Solve! Advancing Animal Agriculture.” The 2024 Summit is set for May 8-9 in Kansas City, Mo. Register by March 8 for the lowest rates offering savings up to $100. Register here!

Dozens of speakers. Hundreds of perspectives. Countless ideas. And that’s just at the starting line of the 2024 Summit. It’s going to take a team to drive our future forward. It’s going to take you, running alongside fellow stakeholders from across the food chain who know that putting in the work is the only way to transform today’s challenges into tomorrow’s solutions. Are you ready? Then take your spot at the 2024 Summit.

“The annual Stakeholders Summit is unique in its ability to bring together each link of the food supply chain to discuss emerging issues facing everyone from farmers and ranchers to retailers and food brands,” said Hannah Thompson-Weeman, president and CEO, Animal Agriculture Alliance. “No matter where you sit in the supply chain, we’re all seeking ways to advance animal agriculture and getting our goals across the finish line. There’s no better place to discuss these challenges and opportunities than at the 2024 Summit where you’re surrounded by peers and stakeholders.”

Amanda Lucey, CEO of The Partnership, a marketing and brand communications agency, will serve as moderator throughout the event. In her 20-year career, Lucey has personal experience in strategic public relations, marketing, branding, and corporate communications for clients, companies, and government institutions at a national and international level. She previously served as the director of communications and public relations for Dairy Alliance. She has held executive roles with U.S. and U.K. governments as vice consul, head of political, press and public affairs for the British Consulate General and as a media correspondent and director of communications for the U.S. government.

Get involved: 

Show your support for the Alliance’s outreach efforts by becoming an official Summit sponsor today! For more information on 2024 sponsorship opportunities still available, contact Logan Hall at lhall@animalagalliance.org.

Help us spread the word about Summit! If you refer a friend to attend the 2024 Summit who has never attended a previous Summit and they list your name as the person who recommended them when they register for the event, you’ll both be entered in a drawing to win a $100 gift card! Each referral will count as one entry and there is no limit on the number of entries for referrers. We will give away two $100 gift cards during the Summit – one drawing for referrers and one drawing for those who were referred. All registrations for the in-person event with a referral listed made until online registration closes on May 3 will be entered. Both the referrer and the person referred must be registered to claim the gift card.

Check the Summit website for the most up-to-date information. You can also follow the hashtag #AAA24 for periodic updates about the event on social media. For general questions about the Summit, email summit@animalagalliance.org or call (703) 562-5160.

About the Alliance:

The Animal Agriculture Alliance has concluded the release of reports from four prominent animal rights extremist conferences held throughout 2023. The conferences included: Direct Action Everywhere’s Animal Liberation Conference (ALC) (held June 9-14), The Animal and Vegan Advocacy Summit (held July 27-30), Humane Society of the United States’ Taking Action for Animals (TAFA) Conference (held August 5-6), and Animal Legal Defense Fund’s Animal Law Conference (held October 20-22). The Alliance also released a report from The Reducetarian Summit (held October 27-29).

Key discussions among speakers at these conferences included: a need for increased “investigations” and “open rescues” conducted at farms and processing facilities; calls for animal rights extremists to become more engaged politically and in the legislative process; strategies to pressure restaurant, retail, and foodservice brands to reduce their sourcing of meat, dairy, poultry, eggs, and seafood; and ways the animal rights movement can tap into other key issues to gain attention such as public health and climate change.

“Monitoring the strategies and tactics of the animal rights movement, including through our release of conference reports, allows Alliance members and the broader agriculture community – from farm to fork – to be aware of how these organizations are becoming increasingly aggressive in their efforts to take meat, poultry, dairy, eggs, and seafood off of consumers’ plates,” said Hannah Thompson-Weeman, Alliance president and CEO. “I hope that everyone involved in raising, processing, and retailing animal protein will take the opportunity to review the main themes of these reports and implement measures to safeguard their livelihoods.”

Direct Action Everywhere’s (DXE) Animal Liberation Conference primarily focused on its “right to rescue” campaign, as DXE has been advocating for the legal right to conduct “open rescues,” which entail entering farms and plants without permission and taking livestock and poultry. DXE extremist Alicia Santurio, who faced trial this year in charges stemming from one such incident, says DXE’s version of “open rescue” is, “[W]e do go into these places of violence and if we see a sick or injured animal that really needs us, those are the ones we rescue, but I don’t think that’s the only reason you have to rescue an animal.” Speakers at the event made their viewpoints of animal agriculture clear as Erin Wing, Animal Outlook’s director of “investigations” claimed, “Animal agriculture is a complex machine refined over centuries and designed to torture and destroy all of the living beings within it.”

The decision for the Supreme Court to uphold California’s Proposition 12 was a key focus at several conferences, including the Animal and Vegan Advocacy Summit and the Humane Society of the United States’ (HSUS) TAFA Conference. Both conferences emphasized the recent “victory” and its implications for the animal rights movement. Kate Brindle, HSUS, said, “The court’s decision… not only upheld Proposition 12 and laws like it… it essentially gave a judicial green light so that we can keep working in the legislatures to free animals from suffering and extreme confinement.” The Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression Act was also denounced as “the biggest threat…ever seen to animal protection.” We expect to see more pressure on this proposed legislation in 2024 as several animal rights supporters, including speakers at the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s Animal Law Conference have called it a “disaster for farmed animals.”

Several conferences also touched on their strategies to continue pressuring restaurant, retail, and foodservice brands to reduce their sourcing of meat, dairy, poultry, eggs, and seafood. Josh Bisig with ProVeg, an organization focused on “food system change,” said, “Our mission is to replace 50% of animal products globally with plant-based and cultivated foods by 2040.”It was also stated that creating change at the food brand level was an effective way to force change at the farm level. Danielle Melgar, U.S. PIRG, shared an example: “We saw an opportunity to instead turn to a corporate campaign approach, so that we could get major restaurant chains to make commitments to purchasing meat that was raised without the routine use of antibiotics. This would then change what their suppliers are doing.”

Animal rights groups have been using the coattails of issues of significant public interest such as climate change, public health, and social justice to reach wider audiences. David Meyer, Food Systems Innovations, put it this way: “What is it about this climate crisis that is actually a huge opportunity for the animals? Well, it’s a new reason to not eat animals, but this one can’t be ignored.” Brian Kateman, Reducetarian Foundation, said, “We are in a room where everybody agrees that we must end factory farming and we have to reduce the size of consumption of animal products. We don’t have to agree on everything in order to make progress on that one thing.”

All 2023 animal rights conference reports, which include accounts of speaker presentations and general observations, are available to Alliance members in the Resource Center on the Alliance website. The Alliance website also includes reports from previous years’ animal rights conferences. Media wishing to obtain copies of the full report, or for all other inquiries, please contact Emily Ellis, manager, communications and content, at eellis@animalagalliance.org.

About the Alliance:

The Alliance safeguards the future of animal agriculture and its value to society by bridging the communication gap between the farm and food communities. We connect key food industry stakeholders to arm them with responses to emerging issues. We engage food chain influencers and promote consumer choice by helping them better understand modern animal agriculture. We protect by exposing those who threaten our nation’s food security with damaging misinformation.

The Animal Agriculture Alliance has announced the theme of its 2024 Stakeholders Summit: “Ready, Set, Solve! Advancing Animal Agriculture.” The 2024 Summit is set for May 8-9 in Kansas City, Mo. Speaking proposals for the event are being accepted through November 22. Interested speakers can submit their proposals at https://bit.ly/AAA24RFP. Registration for the event will open in January.

Dozens of speakers. Hundreds of perspectives. Countless ideas. And that’s just at the starting line of the 2024 Summit. It’s going to take a team to drive our future forward. It’s going to take you, running alongside fellow stakeholders from across the food chain who know that putting in the work is the only way to transform today’s challenges into tomorrow’s solutions. Are you ready? Then take your spot at the 2024 Summit.

The Alliance is currently seeking proposals for keynote presentations and panel discussions that fit the 2024 theme. Presentations should provide unique and thought-provoking ideas and focus on actionable tools attendees can immediately use and implement. For more information, visit the proposal guidelines and form. For questions about the speaker proposal process, contact Abby Kornegay at akornegay@animalagalliance.org.

“The annual Stakeholders Summit is known for its dynamic speaker-filled schedule, and the 2024 Summit will be no different,” said Hannah Thompson-Weeman, president and CEO, Animal Agriculture Alliance. “The Alliance team is excited to tap into the 2024 Olympics theme with an emphasis on propelling animal agriculture toward the ever-evolving finish line as we all work to reach our collective goals. We look forward to curating an agenda that embodies this focus.”

Registration for the Summit will open in early 2024 and a tentative schedule will be shared at that time. Check the Summit website for the most up-to-date information. You can also follow the hashtag #AAA24 for periodic updates about the event on social media. For general questions about the Summit please email summit@animalagalliance.org or call (703) 562-5160.

The Summit is a one-of-a-kind conference attended by a diverse group of decision makers, including representatives from farms, ranches, allied industries, food processors, restaurants, grocery stores, legislatures, universities, government agencies and media. The 2023 Summit, themed “Partners in Progress: Building a Sustainable Future for Animal Ag” and held in Arlington, Va., attracted nearly 320 attendees. Select session recordings from the 2023 event are now available for public viewing, including:

• • Technology in Agriculture: Building on Sustainability Progress
  • Telling Your Story: Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting
  • Partners Around the Plate: Shifting the Conversation About Food
  • Engaging with Consumers: From A to “Gen Z”
  • Growing Trust and Protecting Futures: Building Your Public Trust Communications Strategy

About the Alliance:

The Alliance safeguards the future of animal agriculture and its value to society by bridging the communication gap between the farm and food communities. We connect key food industry stakeholders to arm them with responses to emerging issues. We engage food chain influencers and promote consumer choice by helping them better understand modern animal agriculture. We protect by exposing those who threaten our nation’s food security with damaging misinformation.

The Animal Agriculture Alliance released a report today detailing observations from the Farmed Animal Conference E-Summit held virtually August 2 – 8. The event was organized and hosted by California-based animal sanctuary Animal Place, which advocates for a vegan lifestyle.

The key claims and takeaways from this virtual event included the following: people within positions of wealth and power need to put both their personal and professional resources toward working on behalf of animals; the animal rights movement allegedly would be decades behind their current status without sharing “graphic” content as promotional tools; activists need to focus on aquaculture and push for federal legislation to protect aquatic species from supposed animal cruelty; and people need to move away from animal products completely.

“An important part of the Alliance’s mission to safeguard the future of animal agriculture is monitoring the activities of animal rights activist organizations,” said Kay Johnson Smith, Alliance president and CEO. “It is important for everyone to be aware of just how far activists are willing to go to achieve their goals of ending animal agriculture and moving people – and even pets – to vegan diets. Our conference reports help our members learn more about the strategies and tactics being employed by these organizations so they can take steps to protect their animals, their operations and their livelihoods.”

Activists attending the conference were encouraged to share more animal rights content on social media. Nina Jackel of Lady Freethinker, a non-profit promoting social media animal rights activism, stated “any online activism is good.” Jackel continued by stating she believes that animal rights activists need to continue sharing “graphic” images and videos on social media as she believes “the animal rights movement would be decades behind where we are right now if there weren’t these undercover videos… those images are what get people to pay attention and see that there’s a problem.”

Several sessions called for public acknowledgement of aquatic animals as “sentient beings” and the need to elevate them to the same status as humans and other animals. Mary Finelli, president of Fish Feel, stated, “tragically, fishes comprise by far the largest category of functionally-exploited vertebrate animals. They’re subjected to some of the worst abuse, and they receive the least public concern or legal protection.” Kathy Hessler of the Animal Law Clinic, a partner of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, stated her clinic has been working with Animal Equality and Mercy for Animals to draft a humane aquaculture slaughter bill, claiming that “aquatic animals don’t get even the benefit of the minimal protections offered to these other animals that we raise and kill for food.”

The animal agriculture community as a whole was attacked in multiple sessions throughout the event. Karen Davis, president and founder of United Poultry Concerns, claimed that animals are “individuals and have feelings.” Sean Thomas, international director of investigations at Animal Equality (and former undercover “investigator” for the Humane Society of the United States), claimed that the entire animal agriculture community is full of widespread cruelty. “It’s not just one bad farm. It’s the entire industry model,” he argued. The dairy community was criticized by several speakers including Philip Wollen of Winsome Constance Kindness Trust, a venture capital firm focused on “social justice” issues. “I studied the dairy industry, and I concluded that it is the filthiest, nastiest, most egregious form of cruelty in animal agriculture,” he claimed. His final point was that meat and dairy have “no place in civilized society” because “the animal industrial complex is actually a criminal cartel, and if they had to pay for their externalities, they would go broke.”

Several sessions called for more focus on animal agriculture and climate change. Jane Velez-Mitchell, founder of JaneUnchained News, stated, “by eliminating animal agriculture, we can reforest land and it will begin to absorb carbon and immediately reverse the Earth’s temperature.” Christopher Eubanks, founder of APEX Advocacy, stressed the concept of only having one earth and argued going vegan can help the environment. He added, “consuming animal products is one of the biggest contributors to climate change.” Wollen echoed Eubanks’ statement by claiming “greenhouse gas emissions from livestock now vastly exceed those of transport.”

Pet food was also a focus of the event with Shannon Falconer, CEO of Because, Animals, stating that animal agriculture would not exist without the pet food industry purchasing the “unsellable meat” for human consumption. She further claimed that “[pet food] is a white space that needs to be addressed if we’re going to look at and try to eliminate the factory farming industry as a whole.” She continued by pushing the vegan pet food agenda, claiming that antibiotic use would decrease with plant-based and cell-cultured meat used for pet food instead.

As with most animal rights conferences, speakers demonstrated their real agenda is not about animal care, but rather ending the consumption of meat, poultry, dairy and eggs altogether, as evidenced by several speakers calling for everyone to consume a vegan diet. Wollen claimed that “every morsel of meat we eat is slapping the tear-stained face of a hungry child,” and explained that “we are trying to get people off the meat and dairy drug.” In Jackel’s session, she argued, “the healthiest diet is one that doesn’t have meat.” Plant based and lab-grown alternative proteins were positioned as key to ending animal agriculture, with Arturo Elizondo, CEO, Clara Foods (a company working on ‘creating the world’s first animal-free egg white’), stating “we’re all trying to ultimately create a world where we don’t need animals to eat them.”

The 2021 Farmed Animal Conference E-Summit Report, which includes personal accounts of speaker presentations and general observations, is available to Alliance members in the Resource Center on the Alliance website. The Alliance also has reports from previous animal rights conferences accessible to members on its website.

About the Alliance:

The Animal Agriculture Alliance safeguards the future of animal agriculture and its value to society by bridging the communication gap between the farm and food communities. We connect key food industry stakeholders to arm them with responses to emerging issues. We engage food chain influencers and promote consumer choice by helping them better understand modern animal agriculture. We protect by exposing those who threaten our nation’s food security with damaging misinformation.

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