Restoring Animal Rights Through 'Refarmation' With AJ Albrecht, Managig Director, Mercy for Animals

Care More Be Better: A Podcast For Sustainable Social Impact and Regeneration

Corinna Bellizzi

Personal Journals, Earth Sciences, Society & Culture, Documentary, Science

5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2023

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Eating meat is such an everyday thing for most people that discussions about on animal protection are pretty rare or almost nonexisten. A lot of farmed animals are raised inhumanely and treated not as living things but as mere commodities. In this episode, Corinna Bellizzi chats with AJ Albrecht, Managing Director of Mercy for Animals, an organization that aims to end industrial animal agriculture by constructing a sustainable food system. She talks about the dangers of factory farming to animals, the need for more organic food choices, and the benefits of adopting a plant-based diet. AJ also shares their efforts to pass a bill that shifts the responsibility of the broken food system from everyday consumers to major corporations profiting from factory farming.

About Guest:

AJ Albrecht is the Managing Director of Mercy For Animals in the United States and Canada. She joined Mercy For Animals in 2019 as the organization’s first U.S. government affairs team member, where she built and led the government affairs and public policy team for three years before stepping into her current role. A licensed attorney, AJ is the immediate past chair of the American Bar Association’s Animal Law Committee, a past chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Animal Law Committee, and the founder of the East Orange Animal Alliance. AJ is a frequent speaker on animal advocacy issues and has published on topics relating to our food system, farmed animals, and animal law.

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreajoyalbrecht/

Guest Website: https://mercyforanimals.org

Guest Social: https://www.instagram.com/mercyforanimals/, https://www.facebook.com/mercyforanimals, https://twitter.com/mercyforanimals, https://www.pinterest.com/mercyforanimals/, https://www.youtube.com/mercyforanimals

Show Notes:

00:00 - Introduction

06:30 - Impact of industrial farming

08:33 - Adopting a plant-based diet

13:02 - Bird flu epidemic and water crisis

22:56 - Industrial Agriculture Accountability Act

26:56 - Incrementalism and improving food choices

33:13 - Searching for better food options

40:44 - Transfarmation

43:13 - Impossible burgers

46:45 - Is animal protection a worthy cause?

52:08 - Closing Words

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The problem that we really see is that the federal mechanism for creating disaster preparedness,
0:07.5	which this is a disaster that farmers should be equipped to be prepared for,
0:13.6	they're not receiving the funding or the training or the incentive, really, to be prepared.
0:19.8	Instead, they're incentivized to grow as many chickens,
0:24.4	as large as they can, as quickly as they can. And that isn't what the focus should be on. The focus
0:30.4	should be on ensuring that these animals are treated humanely and healthfully and that food that
0:36.6	winds up in our grocery stores is safe.
0:40.2	This is really an example of our very fragile food system cracking as a result of just one
0:48.8	interruption in this supply chain that, yes, is now putting American consumers in a tight spot. And as you said,
0:56.5	because these diseases are very frequently zoonic, putting all of us at risk.
1:02.7	Welcome to Care More Be Better, a podcast for people like you who care about the social impact
1:08.9	of conscious companies and everyday heroes.
1:12.2	Hear inspiring stories from those who put people in planet before profit and personal gain.
1:17.4	You'll learn how you can make a difference, vote with your dollars, and get involved today.
1:22.3	Here's your host, Karina Belizzi.
1:27.3	Hello, fellow do-goaters and friends. I'm your host, Karina Belizzi. Hello, fellow do-goaters and friends.
1:29.6	I'm your host, Karina Belizzi.
1:31.6	I want to start today by sharing a story of me as a little girl when I was nine years old.
1:38.4	At that age, I had to swallow a couple of really hard pills.
1:42.2	The first was that my beloved grandmother had skin cancer and her
1:47.8	prognosis was not good. As an internal geek myself, I started to read research journals at the
1:54.4	library instead of going to story time because I wanted to understand what was happening to my grandma.
	...

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