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How do a lifelong animal rights activist and a chicken factory farmer become friends? How does working with the oppressors of animals help the vegan movement? Leah Garcés, president of Mercy For Animals and author of Grilled, has made it her life’s mission to advocate for animal rights by crossing enemy lines and working with the world’s largest food corporations to change the system. In this episode she speaks to Tylor and Evy about her dedication to protecting animals from a young age, how meeting a factory farmer radically altered her outlook and approach to activism and how she navigates relationships with the people killing the animals she’s trying to save. Also on this episode...

• Leah shares how the ducks in her backyard awakened her urge to protect animals.
• How Leah’s dream of being a vet evolved when she realised she wanted to tackle the very root of animal suffering.
• ‘Once I discovered that there was this world where you could advocate for farmed animals, and that could be a job, I never stopped advocating for animals, it was my professional job from day 1’.
• How having her first child inspired Leah to deeply consider her work and life’s purpose.
• Leah talks about the initial inner conflict of being a vegan working in a welfare space, and how she reconciled herself with fighting for animal welfare.
• ‘Conversations and empathy do not equal endorsement.’ We talk about the fact that many vegans see working with people in animal agriculture as a betrayal of one’s vegan values.
• Leah explains how her unique friendship with farmer, Craig Watts, radically shifted her approach to animal rights advocacy.
• How farmers become trapped as ‘indentured servants’ in the factory farming system
• ‘Hate the oppression, not the oppressor,’ Leah explains the Martin Luther King philosophy that inspires her activism.
• If farmers are not the enemy, then who is?
• How Leah built a rapport with and earned the trust of farmers in the first place.
• The role of protesting in animal welfare activism and when is the right time to stage a protest.
• MFA’s Transfarmation project
• Leah talks about being a vegan mom and how much of her work she chooses to share with her children. 
• Leah weighs in on whether or not a fully vegan future is plausible.

Links:

Buy Leah’s book, Grilled: Turning Adversaries into Allies to Change the Chicken Industry.

Read more about MFA’s Transfarmation Project: Empowering Farmers for a Better Food System.

Check out Leah’s work at Mercy For Animals.

Follow MFA on Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest and Facebook.

Social Media

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Momoko Hill: @oh_momoko

Robbie Jarvis: @robbjarvis

Tylor Starr: @tylorstarr

Evanna Lynch: @msevylynch