Last weekend I was at the two-day Vegan & Animal Rights Conference (VARC) in Manchester, UK. And I have to say, if the animal agriculture industry had wanted to wipe out the animal rights movement in Europe in one go, then they could have done it easily that weekend with the founders of Veganuary, Animal Rising, Animal Think Tank, ProVeg and many other groups all packed into one hotel.
Surprisingly, after four years of running Vegan Business Tribe, this was my first AR conference. But it won’t be my last. Being in a room with hundreds of people who share your mission – and more importantly are doing something about it – is like meeting long-lost family members that you never knew existed.
It feels like the animal rights movement is at a tipping point. Animal agriculture is fighting back hard – the meat industry alone levies $1 from the sale of every animal to put into a collective budget to promote the sector, giving them more than ONE TRILLION dollars a year to counter the gains made by movements like Veganuary. In contrast, the collective budget available to the ‘diet change’ movement is less than one hundred million dollars globally, less than the annual budget of the New York Metropolitan Opera. It’s a David vs Goliath fight – but we all remember who won that, and I just happen to be called David.
The only way to win is by working together, and that was a big theme at the conference. There has to be a coordinated social movement where grassroots activism works hand in hand with big-business funding and strategy, with both recognising the role the other has to play.
One thing that surprised me was that Vegan Business Tribe is more widely recognised than I realised in the sector. Years of banging the drum for vegan businesses hasn’t gone unnoticed, with many people at the conference knowing who we are and some even seeking me out to talk to me or take a selfie (such as Sebastian Joy, founder of ProVeg above!).
So if you are looking for more motivation, there’s nothing better than putting yourself in a roomful of people who have the same mission as you. There are similar conferences in the US and I’ll also be speaking myself at the International Animal Rights Conference in Luxembourg in September. So hopefully I’ll see you there.
David 💚🌱
David’s thoughts from the week, published every weekend for members only.
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