Hi Lewis, I’d love to know if there are any particular aspects of research on existing, emerging or desirable strategies to promote the transition of agricultural subsidies away from animal (especially factory) farming and towards plant-based agriculture that you would like to see more of. Context—I’m beginning to design a MSc dissertation (in animal welfare science, ethics and law, UK-based) and think this would be a good area to generate a bit more work on, but it’s obviously moving fast so I’d love your thoughts on any especially worthwhile approaches to this.
On another note, do you think social media advocacy for animals is at risk of reaching a banalisation/fatigue/desensitisation/maximum impact plateau or even decrease anytime soon, or do you see as being something worth continuing investing in fairly aggressively, as many organisations seem to be doing?
Cool that you’re designing a MSc dissertation on this! Please share it with me when you’re done :)
I’m pretty skeptical of efforts to remove agricultural subsidies from factory farming, both because I think it’s really hard and because I’m skeptical that subsidies have a large price effect on meat. (I think people sometimes confuse the fact that farmers really like subsidies with an assumption they must be lowering prices a lot—I think they’re often structured instead to prop up prices.) I’m more optimistic about seeking subsidies for plant-based meat research, and potentially for plant-based agriculture (though I’d note this is a huge field and many protein crops are already heavily subsidized).
I’m unsure how many resources organizations should devote to social media. We generally don’t fund much of this kind of work, so haven’t looked deeply into it. I’m not too worried re fatigue, given my sense is our total penetration is still pretty low, but I think it’s an open question of how much impact existing social media content has or whether it’s mostly just preaching to the converted.
Hi Lewis, I’d love to know if there are any particular aspects of research on existing, emerging or desirable strategies to promote the transition of agricultural subsidies away from animal (especially factory) farming and towards plant-based agriculture that you would like to see more of. Context—I’m beginning to design a MSc dissertation (in animal welfare science, ethics and law, UK-based) and think this would be a good area to generate a bit more work on, but it’s obviously moving fast so I’d love your thoughts on any especially worthwhile approaches to this.
On another note, do you think social media advocacy for animals is at risk of reaching a banalisation/fatigue/desensitisation/maximum impact plateau or even decrease anytime soon, or do you see as being something worth continuing investing in fairly aggressively, as many organisations seem to be doing?
Thanks for your good work!
Cool that you’re designing a MSc dissertation on this! Please share it with me when you’re done :)
I’m pretty skeptical of efforts to remove agricultural subsidies from factory farming, both because I think it’s really hard and because I’m skeptical that subsidies have a large price effect on meat. (I think people sometimes confuse the fact that farmers really like subsidies with an assumption they must be lowering prices a lot—I think they’re often structured instead to prop up prices.) I’m more optimistic about seeking subsidies for plant-based meat research, and potentially for plant-based agriculture (though I’d note this is a huge field and many protein crops are already heavily subsidized).
I’m unsure how many resources organizations should devote to social media. We generally don’t fund much of this kind of work, so haven’t looked deeply into it. I’m not too worried re fatigue, given my sense is our total penetration is still pretty low, but I think it’s an open question of how much impact existing social media content has or whether it’s mostly just preaching to the converted.