Who Are the “Front-Line Persons” We Engage With?

The term “front-line persons” is used as shorthand to refer to an assortment of persons who are trying to grapple with various complex negative impacts of global industrial food animal production, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Broadly speaking, they include:

  • staff and volunteers in organizations working collaboratively with different stakeholders to address the problem (e.g. work with multiple partners to improve animal welfare standards)
  • activists mounting public campaigns to raise awareness of or oppose certain practice or principle in this system of production
  • small local farmers experiencing first-hand unfavorable impacts from industrial producers
  • communities contending with predicaments such as environmental pollution
  • philanthropic grant-makers that support all the above-mentioned groups

We engage with them because we are concerned that if their understanding of the problem is suboptimal, that would reduce the likelihood of their succeeding in their endeavors and sustaining the gains they make.

We believe that offering them easier access to academic perspectives and insights can help them develop a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of what really goes on in Brazil, China, and other low- and middle-income countries, from what drives the adoption of this system of production in these countries to how to stem the tide.