Leah Garcés of Mercy For Animals on factory farm investigations, long-term strategy, and animal advocacy during COVID-19

“Our challenge is one where investigations are very hard. The people who do this work, I cannot tell you how smart they are. They are doing all kinds of research, not just getting the footage. The footage is the last thing they’re getting; they’re doing so much more to be able achieve that footage, including thinking strategically through: How do we achieve that strategic plan that we’ve laid out which includes securing broiler policies, enforcing egg policies. And what we’re trying to do is not just telling stories that engage the public. They are underpinned by a bigger strategy. We worked on a campaign with McDonalds and we did undercover investigations into McDonalds egg-laying hens; undercover investigations followed by a coalition campaign that then led to them adopting cage-free eggs as their policy. And that is the precise formula that you want.”

• Leah Garcés

Mercy For Animals’ interventions affect the lives of hundreds of millions of animals. But how do we go from these impressive achievements to the end of factory farming? And what strategies should advocates be employing to help animals most effectively?

Leah Garcés is the president of Mercy For Animals and previously founded Compassion in World Farming’s US branch. She’s also the author of the book Grilled: Turning Adversaries into Allies to Change the Chicken Industry.

Topics discussed in the episode:

• Mercy For Animals’ plan for ending factory farming (1:45)
• How MFA decides which countries to focus its work on (9:06)
• Why MFA advocates for pigs, chickens, and fish, but not insects yet (17:45)
• The opportunities presented by COVID-19 for animal advocacy (20:19)
• How MFA maximizes the positive impact of its factory farm investigations (29:10)
• The priorities in corporate welfare campaigns and how advocates can avoid encouraging “humanewashing” by the meat industry (40:42)
• MFA’s marketing funnel for volunteers and capacity-building programmes (48:59)
• How Leah thinks about long-term trends and impact for animals on longer timeframes (53:20)
• How MFA has changed its approach to plant-based advocacy (1:06:50)
• The different countries that MFA operates in and how its role varies by country (1:13:48)
• How Leah’s career has developed and her tips for founding new nonprofits (1:19:34)
• The biggest bottlenecks preventing MFA from having even more impact than it already does (1:24:31)
• The importance of increasing operational expertise in the farmed animal movement (1:31:18)

Resources discussed in the episode are available at https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/podcast

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