September #2: Capacity and funding in Asia, upcoming debate week, and free course
Your farmed animal advocacy update
Welcome to our Hive Highlights September #2!
There has been a lot released in the past couple weeks. Out of everything, here are three resources that we believe are worth noting:
📚 Report: The Capacity and Funding Landscape of the Asian Farm Animal Protection Movement analyzed the sector’s capacity, funding, and approaches (or listen to the podcast episode instead!)
🎁 Opportunity: Free five-session animal nonprofit board member course is offered by Animal Defense Partnership. The first session starts on 1 October — so register now!
🗣️ Discussion: Animal Welfare vs Global Health Debate Week will take place on the EA Forum on October 7–13 to discuss the debate statement “It would be better to spend an extra $100m on animal welfare than on global health.”
Last year, this post received a huge response and sparked a lot of helpful conversation about moral weights, transparency, and tradeoffs. We are excited to see that continue 😊
You can prepare by drafting out your argument or start thinking about how to vote on the debate banner.
Warmly,
Allison (and the Hive team)
Newsletter table of contents:
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🌍 Animals and Climate
91% of people polled across nine EU countries believe the welfare of fish should be protected to the same or greater extent as other farmed animals, per survey.
One year after the Swedish government announced a voluntary phase-out subsidy for mink farmers, the number of mink farms has halved.
The State of Climate Action and Disclosure in the Food Sector reports that major agrifood companies are making some progress on reducing scope 1 and 2 emissions but lagging when it comes to scope 3.
⚖️ Policy, Legislation, and Law
A review on the economic impacts of a cage-free animal welfare policy in Southeast Asian and Indian egg production shows that higher costs associated with cage-free production will, in general, be compensated by additional revenue.
An analysis of state enforcement of US farmed animal welfare laws finds that enforcement is not consistent and remains an obstacle.
Final report of the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture recommends the European Commission propose the revision of the animal welfare legislation by 2026.
How Big Ag lobbyists are influencing the E.U. democratic process using the media and other points of influence.
Survey indicates that 60% of global consumers would support government policies encouraging meat reduction to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Five distinct planetary stewardship segments were identified and provide a more nuanced view of how different groups engage with these issues.
🥗 Plant-Based Food & Cultivated Protein
Nectar’s sensory analysis of “plant-rich meat“ shows that consumers preferred the the blended meat over most plant-based versions, as well as some 100% animal meat products (full report).
NYC Health + Hospitals implemented a nutrition program making plant-based meals the primary meal options for patients at their 11 hospitals. Per study:
“The plant-based meals have been well received, with patient acceptance over 95% and patient satisfaction above 90%. Per-tray food costs for plant-based entrees cost $0.59 less compared to trays including animal products.”
💪 Animal Advocacy Org Updates
Five years of Animal Advocacy Careers: what they learned & plan to work on next.
How Leah Garcés and Transfarmation use curiosity, dialogue, and connection to succeed in conversations with farmers.
Material Innovation Initiative (MII) will be shutting down their operations.
New website, AnimalMethodsBias.org provides guidance and resources to help researchers successfully publish non-animal biomedical research by overcoming the preference some peer reviewers have for animal-based research methods.
We Animals Media brand evolution includes new logo and website refresh.
🎲 Other
An argument for why subjective time (how time is experienced) rather than objective time should be used when aggregating wellbeing to better capture how much experience is happening.
Heads Up newsletter shares marketing takeaways from a viral pizza campaign and emotional arguments.
Neurophilosopher GPT Tool was released by Welfare Footprint Project to bridge neuroscience with philosophical questions about the mind, consciousness, and cognition.
Report on place-based food systems aims to identify gaps and recommend solutions by country and food system type. Also, they produced an interactive Great Food Puzzle tool.
💼 Jobs:
Corporate Engagement Manager, Greener by Default.
Digital Marketing Specialist, New Roots Institute.
Global VP of Corporate Engagement, Mercy for Animals.
International Climate Protection Fellowship, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Policy Officer – Brussels, GFI Europe. Apply by 6 October.
Program Administrator - Environmental Studies, New York University.
Research Director, Faunalytics. Apply by 18 October.
US Director, US Senior Foundations Manager, US Philanthropy Manager, and Legacy Administration Officer, Compassion in World Farming.
Web Developer, Switch4Good.
For more job listings, follow Hive Slack’s job bot in the #job-posting channel for new positions in a daily feed (you need to sign up to Slack to view). You can also view the Animal Advocacy Careers, Tälist, Alt Protein Careers, and Probably Good job boards.
🔥 Opportunities
Advisory Support is being offered at no cost for farmed animal advocacy organizations by PEPR, a new US Public Benefit Corporation.
Advocacy Amplified is a free five-part workshop series on community organizing starting on 2 October. It is run by The Humane League, Mercy for Animals, and New Roots Institute.
AI Loves Animals—Images 2025 contest invites participants to submit AI-generated static images or artwork to advocate for animals. Submissions will be accepted 1 October to 31 January.
Animal Advocacy Careers is looking for a Board Member & Treasurer. Apply by 18 October.
Insect Welfare Research Society (IWRS) is accepting proposals for their 2024 Graduate Student Research Awards in Sentience and Welfare. Submit your proposal by 31 October.
Scarlet Spark offers free workshops for nonprofit leaders: Performance Assessment on 1 October; Strategic Planning on 5 November.
Stray Dog Institute’s State of the Movement survey deadline is 30 September. Only one response per organization.
User-Friendly has two new offerings:
Subsidized report, research, and document design to organizations working to support farmed animals.
Presenting Skills workshop will take place on 9 October.
Vegan and Animal Rights Conference (VARC) 2025 speaker applications close on 30 September.
Volunteer opportunities:
International Council for Animal Welfare (ICAW) is looking for a web developer volunteer to help build a WordPress site.
The International Centre for Animal Rights and Ethics (ICARE) is looking for help with communications & social media, campaign & marketing, fundraising, and video editing.
Volunteer for us at Hive! We’re looking for individuals to help run Slack as a moderator or channel lead.
💰 Funding
Food System Innovations is accepting proposal requests for “Creating Benchmark Datasets and Common Task Frameworks for Alternative Protein Development.” Apply by 4 October.
GivingPulse’s Q2 2024 Report was released and includes a beta data explorer.
🐔 Animal Policy International is asking for global advocates to sign their government petition! It is requesting that New Zealand close a loophole and ban imports of animal products that are are illegal to produce in the country. 🥝
📚 Research:
Study on improving wild animal welfare through contraception and the connection between welfare and population density (and accompanying interview)
📕Books or other
Clearer Thinking’s AI Productivity Guide
Pro-animal op-ed database as a resource and catalog of published work
Transfarmation: The Movement to Free Us from Factory Farming by Leah Garcés
🎁 Media
Podcasts
Asia for Animals:
Future of Foods: The future of cellular agriculture with Anthony Chow - Agronomics
How I Learned to Love Shrimp: Giulia Malerbi on banning octopus farming globally
Our Hen House: No New (or Old) Slaughterhouses with Shannon Blair & Malaina Watts
The John Oberg Podcast: Exposing the Realities of Animal Agriculture with Robbie Lockie
Videos (use YouTube video summarizer to get key takeaways!)
Aquatic Life Conference 2024 session recordings are available! This took place virtually on 9-10 September.
Faunalytics:
Hive at CARE
The team had a fantastic time in Poland! Similar to last year’s CARE, we left the weekend feeling both energized and inspired 🤩
We also spent some time meeting with community members to get feedback about their experiences, so thank you as always for being honest and helpful 🧡
Learn about event management and budgeting from AVA International
Tomorrow we will be hosting a virtual chat with AVA International on event management and budgeting with Executive Director Julia Reinelt. Hope to see you there!
We will send a recording to everyone who registers, and will include it in our upcoming October #1 Hive Highlights edition if you want to rewatch it.
Upcoming Hive events
27 September: Event management and budgeting with AVA International Executive Director Julia Reinelt
29 September: AI for Animals meetup in San Francisco
2 October: Hive Community Conversations
9 October: Hive Community Conversations
16 October: Hive Community Conversations
23 October: Hive Community Conversations
🎉 Upcoming external conferences
Encuentro por los Animales, 4–6 October. Ciudad de México, MX.
Asia Farm Animal Day (AFAD), 9–11 October. Hanoi, Viet Nam.
China Vegan Summit, 13–16 October. Suzhou, China.
Reducetarian Summit, 25–27 October. Texas, USA.
AVA Summit Latin America, 5–8 December. São Paulo, Brazil.
View more on the Connect for Animals (CFA)’s event list and Animal Rights Calendar.
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Thanks for reading our September #2 newsletter edition 🧡 It’s made possible by the incredible work of animal advocates (like you!)
📰 Submit inclusions for the next edition: deadline is 7 October.
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