Imagine a distant future.

In it, our relationship with the animals we eat has changed for the better. What do you see? A world where regenerative farming allows animals to live natural lives? A world that’s meat-free, where humans are brought together by a new consensus against captivity and killing? A world guided by the welfare scientists, whose precise understanding has allowed us to eliminate animal suffering? The global population is growing–in this future, are we eating more meat, or less?

Many critical conversations about animals in the food system are taking place in parallel. Animal activists and vegan charities, animal welfare scientists and ethologists, animal ethicists, conservation scientists–all critique current systems of animal agriculture, but each focus on different specifics and different strategies for change. Each field is diverse, with various voices pushing in different directions. To what extent are they trying to shape common–or at least compatible–futures? Where do stakeholders from different fields agree on ideal outcomes but disagree on near-term tactics (incrementalism vs. transformation)? Where do they fundamentally disagree on what utopia might look like, even if they agree on the current direction of travel?

In this session, we bring together experts in animal welfare science, One Health, animal ethics and multispecies studies [subject to identifying speakers] to discuss different approaches to our relationships with the animals we eat. Through their conversation, we aim to illuminate not only the different futures towards which different disciplines (more or less implicitly) work, but also the values and priorities that underlie them.

This event will also mark the publication of TABLE’s newest explainer, “Animal ethics and animal welfare in food systems”, available for download 26 August. In this work we explore the histories and presents of animal welfare science and philosophical approaches to animal ethics, and their roles in the debates around the future of food.