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Growing A Community- How To Support Farmed Animal Protection In China (Faunalytics)

Members of the farmed animal protection community in China provide an overview of the landscape, bottlenecks, and potential growth areas.

When considering animal suffering from a global perspective, it is clear that current resources are disproportionately allocated to Western countries, yet suffering is on the rise elsewhere too as populations and production grow. One such country, China, is the largest in the world by population, and among the largest by economy and land mass. For all these reasons, supporting the animal protection community in China is crucial. This report and other recent research on wild animal advocacy share this goal and many complementary recommendations.

Although China’s per capita meat consumption is lower than most wealthier, Western countries, its size and growing industry means that it houses and slaughters more farmed animals than any other country in the world. Despite that, the number of people who are working to protect the lives and welfare of farmed animals is currently quite small compared to more established communities in some other countries. This study is intended to provide data to support that community. Because of the scale of China’s agriculture industry, even small changes have the potential for an outsized effect.

In partnership and consultation with members of the farmed animal protection community in China, we conducted semi-structured interviews about the current situation and its challenges. These subject matter experts gave their opinions on where the best opportunities to protect farmed animals exist, and how to support the work that is being done.

A Selection Of Key Findings:

  1. Some of the biggest challenges to animal protection in China right now are a lack of public awareness of farmed animal welfare, a lack of legal animal welfare enforcement, and difficulties with organizations’ operating environment.
  2. The community reported bottlenecks to improving the situation for farmed animals, including a negative image of vegetarianism, small community size, and limited ability to build additional capacity.
  3. Opportunities include aligning with growing concerns about the health and environmental consequences of animal agriculture, tailoring educational and food-related events to segments of the public with the greatest interest, building a market for higher-welfare products, and collaborating with other communities who focus on health and environment.

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