Right now, more than 70 billion animals are farmed for food each year – two-thirds in conditions that mean they can’t move freely or live naturally.

Unfortunately, this includes animals like chickens, pigs and cows that are commonly farmed in both Canada and the United States.

It’s an unfortunate reality that the world isn’t going to stop eating animal products overnight. With that in mind, in this week’s PlantPod episode, we delve into how we can lobby the government and industry to improve the lives of farm animals at every stage from farming to transportation to slaughter.

For this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lynn Kavanagh who is the Farming Campaign Manager for World Animal Protection Canada.

Here are some of the questions we delved into:

What does factory farming look like in Canada?

How can we help improve the lives of farm animals?

What legislation does the government have in place to help improve the lives of these animals?

Are farmers and industry open to change?

What are Ag-Gag laws?

Which animals are treated the worst?

What are some of the health implications of this unfair treatment to animals?

Lynn has been leading animal advocacy campaigns for many years. She is currently the Canadian Farming Campaign Manager for World Animal Protection, an international animal welfare charity with offices in 14 countries. She oversees the organization’s farm animal welfare and food systems campaigns to change government legislation, corporate policies, and people’s behaviour to improve protection for animals. She received an MSc degree in Animal Behaviour and Welfare from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

Support World Animal Protection here: https://www.worldanimalprotection.ca/take-action

Learn more about farm animals here: https://www.worldanimalprotection.ca/our-work/animals-farming

PetSmart Campaign:

https://www.worldanimalprotection.ca/petsmart-campaign-questions-and-answers