S2, Ep11: Turning Adversaries into Allies with Leah Garcés
The ChickPeeps Vegan Podcast
Evanna Lynch
4.8 • 619 Ratings
🗓️ 15 January 2020
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode is brought to you by Vivo Life! Use our code 'chickpeeps10' to get 10% off your order at vivolife.com!
This week we are also sponsored by Veestro! Use code PEEPS at checkout for 25% off your first order at tryveestro.com/chickpeeps!
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
Twitter: @ChickPeepsPod
Instagram: @ChickPeepsPod
Facebook: @ChickPeepsPodcast
Momoko Hill: @oh_momoko
Robbie Jarvis: @robbjarvis
Tylor Starr: @tylorstarr
Evanna Lynch: @msevylynch
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do. |
| 0:09.3 | Eat your veggies, not your friends. |
| 0:12.0 | It's not hard to be vegan. |
| 0:14.5 | The chickpeepie. |
| 0:17.0 | Hello, chickpeeps. |
| 0:18.0 | Welcome to Season 2, episode 11. |
| 0:20.2 | I'm your host, Avey Lynch, and the Chick-Peeps is your friendly weekly vegan podcast. |
| 0:24.8 | Hope you guys are all doing well. I'm so excited, as I always am, every week to share this guest with you. |
| 0:30.7 | This week we have Leah Garcay-Zan, who is an incredible activist. She's just a force. I met Leah, I think it was 2014 or 2015, when she was |
| 0:40.8 | working at, well, she was the head of Compassion World Farming in the US, and we went on this trip |
| 0:45.4 | together. And she totally opened my eyes to the scope of the problem that as vegans, |
| 0:51.6 | we can't just be helping and advocating for animals. We have to |
| 0:54.6 | advocate for the people who are the victims of the factory farming system too. And I think that's |
| 0:59.9 | just a brilliant way to advocate for animal rights. It's just a much more compassionate way of |
| 1:06.3 | doing it. And she's taught me so much as well this interview. So a bit more about her work, her career. |
| 1:12.3 | Leah Garcia is the president of Mercy for Animals. And you'll remember Mercy for Animals from season |
| 1:16.6 | two when we interviewed the founder, Milo Runkle. Leah has partnered with some of the world's largest |
| 1:21.1 | food companies on her mission to end factory farming. Leah has nearly 20 years of leadership experience |
| 1:25.3 | in the animal protection movement. She oversaw international campaigns at the World Society for the Protection of Animals, |
| 1:30.6 | and which is now World Animal Protection, |
| 1:32.8 | and launched compassion in world farming in the United States. |
| 1:35.7 | Her work has been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, |
... |
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