> America has about five times more vegetarians than farmers — and many more omnivores who care about farm animals. ... > How do they do it? Money helps. The US National Pork Producers Council spent $2.8M lobbying last year, much of it presumably to advance the anti-animal EATS Act. Individuals, companies, and groups associated with the meat industry made about $45M inpoliticalcontributions in the 2020 election cycle — about $45M more than animal advocates.
Wait—did vegans and animal rights groups really donate approximately $0 to political donations (at least in 2020)?
The facts you present seem to imply that the public cares about this issue in surveys, but doesn’t care about it enough to actually spend much money trying to change things.
On that note, $45M really doesn’t seem like much to me, though that was just on that one election cycle. I’d hope that animal rights people could organize $100M/yr for this sort of thing. 1% of Americans identify as Vegan, if they all donated an average of $33/yr, that would be $100M/yr.
Thanks Ozzie! I should have been more precise in my claim. I’m guessing people who happen to be vegans or animal rights activists cumulatively donated millions in the 2020 election cycle. I’m just not aware of anyone donating substantial $ for the purpose of advancing animal advocacy.
But, in fairness, this may well be true of a lot of the $45M donated by industry-aligned individuals too. E.g. $14.7M of the $45M was donated by executives of Mountaire Corp, almost entirely to conservative groups. My guess is that’s likely because those executives are personally conservative—not because they’re buying influence.
And yeah I agree the money involved is surprisingly little given the stakes. I’d love to see someone try to organize vegans to give politically, though you’d also need to get the vegans to tell politicians this is why they’re donating, which might be more challenging.
This seems like an isolated demand for rigour. When Hormel employees and other associated people gave $500k to an end-of-life care charity—a donation which is part of Lewis’s data—I don’t think this was a secret scheme to increase beef consumption. (I’m not really sure why it’s captured in this data at all actually). People who work in agriculture aren’t some sort of evil caricature who only donate money to oppose animal protection; a lot of their donations are probably motivated by the same concerns that motivate everyone else.
Thanks for flagging that. I agree that most of the funds donated by animal ag employees were not to oppose animal protection, or likely any specific policies. I should have clarified that. I also generally don’t think of people working in agriculture as evil. I think they’re mostly just doing the rationale thing given the goal of profit maximization, and the lack of constraints we’ve imposed on how to pursue that.
When Hormel employees and other associated people gave $500k to an end-of-life care charity—a donation which is part of Lewis’s data—I don’t think this was a secret scheme to increase beef consumption.
Ya, I wouldn’t want to count that. I didn’t check what the data included.
People who work in agriculture aren’t some sort of evil caricature who only donate money to oppose animal protection; a lot of their donations are probably motivated by the same concerns that motivate everyone else.
I agree. I think if the money is coming through an interest/industry group or company, not just from an employee or farmer, then it’s probably usually lobbying for that interest/industry group or company or otherwise to promote the shared interests of that group. Contributions from individuals could be more motivated by political identity and other issues than just protecting or promoting whatever industry they work in.
I liked this post a fair bit, thank you.
> America has about five times more vegetarians than farmers — and many more omnivores who care about farm animals.
...
> How do they do it? Money helps. The US National Pork Producers Council spent $2.8M lobbying last year, much of it presumably to advance the anti-animal EATS Act. Individuals, companies, and groups associated with the meat industry made about $45M in political contributions in the 2020 election cycle — about $45M more than animal advocates.
Wait—did vegans and animal rights groups really donate approximately $0 to political donations (at least in 2020)?
The facts you present seem to imply that the public cares about this issue in surveys, but doesn’t care about it enough to actually spend much money trying to change things.
On that note, $45M really doesn’t seem like much to me, though that was just on that one election cycle. I’d hope that animal rights people could organize $100M/yr for this sort of thing. 1% of Americans identify as Vegan, if they all donated an average of $33/yr, that would be $100M/yr.
Thanks Ozzie! I should have been more precise in my claim. I’m guessing people who happen to be vegans or animal rights activists cumulatively donated millions in the 2020 election cycle. I’m just not aware of anyone donating substantial $ for the purpose of advancing animal advocacy.
But, in fairness, this may well be true of a lot of the $45M donated by industry-aligned individuals too. E.g. $14.7M of the $45M was donated by executives of Mountaire Corp, almost entirely to conservative groups. My guess is that’s likely because those executives are personally conservative—not because they’re buying influence.
And yeah I agree the money involved is surprisingly little given the stakes. I’d love to see someone try to organize vegans to give politically, though you’d also need to get the vegans to tell politicians this is why they’re donating, which might be more challenging.
Vegans could donate to an animal protection group, like HSUS, to lobby on their behalf. That should make it clear why they’re donating.
Yea, this is what I was assuming the action/alternative would be. This strategy is very tried-and-true.
Surely SBF count[s/ed] as a vegan and an animal rights guy? He alone donated over $5m to Biden.
I doubt that was to support animal protection, though.
This seems like an isolated demand for rigour. When Hormel employees and other associated people gave $500k to an end-of-life care charity—a donation which is part of Lewis’s data—I don’t think this was a secret scheme to increase beef consumption. (I’m not really sure why it’s captured in this data at all actually). People who work in agriculture aren’t some sort of evil caricature who only donate money to oppose animal protection; a lot of their donations are probably motivated by the same concerns that motivate everyone else.
Thanks for flagging that. I agree that most of the funds donated by animal ag employees were not to oppose animal protection, or likely any specific policies. I should have clarified that. I also generally don’t think of people working in agriculture as evil. I think they’re mostly just doing the rationale thing given the goal of profit maximization, and the lack of constraints we’ve imposed on how to pursue that.
Ya, I wouldn’t want to count that. I didn’t check what the data included.
I agree. I think if the money is coming through an interest/industry group or company, not just from an employee or farmer, then it’s probably usually lobbying for that interest/industry group or company or otherwise to promote the shared interests of that group. Contributions from individuals could be more motivated by political identity and other issues than just protecting or promoting whatever industry they work in.