Jayasimha Nuggehalli on capacity building and animal welfare in Asia

“The three things that need to be done for Asia are capacity building, capacity building, and capacity building. There’s this tendency of wanting to do things at a global level, having uniformization across countries. But a lot of these policies that are written at the global level are not worth the paper that they’re printed on if there isn’t enough or more focus on building capacity on the ground. And it requires someone with grit to be there at the local level, speaking the local language, understanding the situation there. And I guess more and more international groups should be looking at building capacity rather than just nationwide or international treaties and legislation.”
 - Jayasimha Nuggehalli

Asia contains a large proportion of the world’s total farmed animal population. But what actions can be taken to most effectively reduce animal suffering in that context? And how can we build the capacity of local animal advocacy movements?

Jayasimha Nuggehalli is a co-founder and the Chief Operating Officer of Global Food Partners, a new nonprofit helping companies to implement animal welfare commitments in Asia. He was the Country Director of HSI’s work in India and has participated in animal advocacy in India for over 20 years.

Topics discussed in the episode:

• How and why Global Food Partners works with companies using, producing, and selling animal products, and why they do this in Asia (1:40)
• The objections that companies give to making further welfare commitments (13:24)
• Why Global Food Partners offers a “book and claim” credit trading platform to companies to support them to switch their “conventional eggs” to cage-free without passing on costs directly to consumers (17:19)
• Where pledges that affect Asian supply chains originate — Asian commitments compared to Western and international commitments — how this differs by country, and how Global Food Partners prioritize between different countries (21:42)
• How Global Food Partners secures its meetings and finds clients (32:59)
• How Global Food Partners’ work affects the profitability of the production and sale of animal products (35:02)
• How we can encourage better enforcement of existing animal protection laws in India — “capacity building, capacity building, and capacity building” as the key priority (43:39)
• The association between animal activism and right-wing political views in India (1:01:52)
• The pros and cons of focusing on companion animals in India (1:08:15)
• The main changes to the animal advocacy movement in India over the last 20 years (1:17:08)
• The origin stories of HSI India and PETA India, plus the importance of having local employees in animal advocacy organizations (1:24:21)
• Jayasimha’s career advice for advocates seeking to make progress for animals in Asia and the skills that are most urgently needed, such as animal welfare science and supply chain management (1:31:22)
• How transferable management and leadership experience from outside the animal advocacy movement is to the animal advocacy context (1:46:01)

Resources discussed in the episode are available at https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/podcast

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