Fall means students across the country are headed back to school, whatever that may mean this year (virtual, in-person or some type of blend). If you’ve faced the challenge this year of overseeing your child’s virtual instruction while attempting to work from home, you have both my sympathy and respect!

While just staying on top of how schools are operating is enough of a tough task, we can’t forget about how animal rights activist groups are attempting to get access to classrooms in order to promote their messaging about the alleged evils of animal agriculture to students. Activists groups believe animal rights is a “movement of young people,” and they want to start exposing kids to the idea that animals are equal to humans as early as possible.

As teachers, students and parents have adapted to changes in schooling, activists have done the same. For example, the Educated Choices Program (ECP) is an activist nonprofit that usually sends instructors in-person to give presentations and claims to have spoken to 1.5 million students in 60,000 schools since 2015. In response to current circumstances, it has created video presentations instead around topics like healthful eating (“how modern farming and agricultural practices contribute to present-day public health concerns”), environment and modern agriculture (“how the current global demand for animal products and related crops affect ecosystems and our health through global warming”), cultivated meat (“plant-based meats, cultivated (cell-based) meats, and "animal-free" dairy and egg technologies, taking an in-depth look at the science behind their production, as well as the benefits”) and the ethics of eating (“solutions for reducing the risk of deadly diseases and viruses, investigate ways to create a more sustainable planet, and learn about new food technologies that may address the negative impacts of our current food system”).

If you’re still questioning the agenda behind their instruction, ECP offers a “next steps guide” with resources for eating a plant-based diet and convincing your school cafeteria to offer more plant-based foods. Unfortunately, offering this type of content as on-demand videos rather than live presentations may allow activist groups to get in front of even more students with what is clearly not balanced information about animal agriculture and meat production. That means we need to step up our game as well and make sure we are telling the other side of the story.

As one way of doing that, the Alliance is bringing back our College Aggies Online (CAO) scholarship competition this fall with a few changes. CAO connects college students who are interested in promoting agriculture and gives them the skills they need to effectively engage with key audiences online and on campus. While the individual competition has always been virtual (participants receive training from expert mentors and engage with their peers on social media by posting information about current and emerging issues), the club competition typically focuses on in-person events such as booths on campus, movie screenings or farm tours. However, in light of current circumstances and to adhere to health and social distancing protocols on campuses, we’ve updated the club division to include a variety of virtual and small group engagement opportunities.

The competition kicks off on September 14^th and all college students and clubs with an interest in animal agriculture are encouraged to sign up.

I encourage you to help us in this effort by reaching out to a local school or university this fall and offering to join them (in-person or virtually) to share information about your role in the meat industry and answer their questions. We can’t be frustrated about inaccurate perceptions unless we all do our part to correct them.

Back to school time for activists — even virtually

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