The Animal Ag Alliance wrapped up our 20^th Stakeholders Summit recently, held virtually for the second time. While I think many of us are feeling some virtual conference burnout, our speakers helped make the event incredibly dynamic, even through the screen, and delivered some valuable insights to a record crowd of nearly 600 registered attendees. If you weren’t able to join us, I’d like to take a moment and share some of the great tidbits of content from the conference.

“My nutrition classes taught me that animal-source foods supply high quality protein and bioavailable vitamins, iron, iodine, zinc, calcium folic acid and key essential fatty acids that can be locally difficult to attain in adequate quantities from plant-source foods alone,” said UC-Davis’ Alison Van Eenennaam, PhD, in a presentation focused on how animal-source foods and alternative proteins can both have a spot on the plate and should focus on promoting their own merits vs. fear-based campaigns denigrating one another.
“When we come together, we can move mountains,” said Michelle Miller, better known online as The Farm Babe, in a session about engaging with consumers and influencers. Smithfield’s Stewart Leeth shared a similar sentiment on a different panel about how companies are engaging on animal ag issues, stating “There’s strength in numbers, so the more people that talk and the more people that vocalize what they’re doing every day in the social media world, the better.”
“Animal ag has a good story to tell and is telling that story early enough to make a difference in environmental matters,” said Christian Richter of The Policy Group in a panel discussion about the current and future political landscape. Richter shared that climate discussions have been and will continue to be a huge topic under the Biden Administration, noting that “agriculture overall is being acknowledged.”
"Misinformation is being normalized, which means that it's having a greater impact on people's lives. There's misinformation about everything,” said the University of Alberta’s Timothy Caulfield in his keynote address about how to effectively combat misinformation online and in other venues.
“Help them get the food item that they've chosen from the package to their plate deliciously, safely, and in a very smart way that honors what they're trying to do from a flavor and culture perspective,” recommended registered dietitian Kimberly Kirchherr in a conversation about food trends in the wake of COVID-19 and how the animal agriculture community can continue to effectively meet consumer needs.
“The amount of food we waste impacts the environment significantly more than the types of food we eat,” said Frank Mitloehner, PhD, from the UC-Davis CLEAR Center.
“Overall [the COVID-19 pandemic] had very little impact on the [activist] movement itself. In fact, that may have reenergized much of the movements in that people had a little bit more time on our hands to engage with other activists,” shared John Sancenito of Information Network Associates during a panel discussion about current trends in activism and security recommendations.
“Animal activists have been doing this for a while, they have been utilizing litigation strategies and going into the courts to try to affect how you all do business, and sometimes they are successful and thankfully, sometimes they are not,” said attorney Michelle Pardo in her presentation explaining legal issues involving animal rights activists.

I could spend many more paragraphs sharing quotes, but I’ll cut myself off here. Suffice to say that our speakers hit on pretty much every topic of relevance to animal agriculture and meat production right now, with a heavy focus on sustainability. We’ll be releasing a full highlights report soon where you can catchup on all of the conversations, and of course we’d love to have you join us in person in 2022!

Seen and heard at the 2021 Virtual Summit

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