United Poultry Concerns Co-Sponsors First Humane Hoax Online Summit

Growing consumer criticism of large-scale animal agriculture has led food manufacturers and shoppers alike to turn toward so-called “humane” animal farming and reassuring labels on animal products. These falsehoods and myths, which we call the Humane Hoax, range from phony promotional ploys by large farms with thousands of animals, to your neighbor’s backyard enterprise, yet animal exploitation and suffering are inherent in every method of animal agriculture.

On January 12th & 13th, The Humane Hoax Online Summit convened a panel of experts to expose animal agriculture’s humane-washing with fresh insight. As communication and activism move to digital platforms, UPC is evolving to embrace this online migration. A webinar has certain advantages over a conference in a physical location. One advantage is that people from anywhere in the world can participate without the expense of travel. Over 500 people registered from coast to coast and overseas for The Humane Hoax Online Summit. We even had an attendee from South Africa! The interactive chat feature made it fun to communicate with other attendees during the sessions, offering insights, asking questions, and sharing resources in real time.

The two-day webinar featured speakers covering a wide range of topics related to the Humane Hoax, starting with an introduction by the webinar’s co-organizer, UPC’s Hope Bohanec. Hope has written one of the few books examining the humane hoax entitled The Ultimate Betrayal, Is There Happy Meat? The day continued with philosopher John Sanbonmatsu, PhD, offering a disturbing look at the “Femivores” – a new genre of middle-class women leaving professional careers to take up animal husbandry as a way (they claim) to empower themselves as women. John revealed how “femivores” are playing a pivotal ideological role in legitimating speciesism and stabilizing meat as a “natural,” “humane” commodity. The first day ended with a presentation by Nassim Nobari of Seed the Commons exploring the conflict between an increasingly popular local and sustainable food movement and the animal liberation movement, and how veganic farming – growing food without animal inputs like manure and blood meal – is rising in response.

The second day continued with more of our inspiring speakers, starting with Ashley Capps, founder of Mothers Against Dairy, debunking five common “humane” farming myths. We then shifted into a conversation about the environmental impact of animal products, typically labeled “sustainable” and “local,” led by Vasile Stanescu, PhD. Dr. Stanescu concluded that, like humane washing, these “green-washing” labels misrepresent the true ecological toll of animal agriculture. In some respects, “sustainable” animal farming can be even worse, environmentally, than conventional animal farming. Following this discussion, webinar co-organizer Justin Van Kleeck of Triangle Chicken Advocates shared heart-wrenching stories of chickens he has rescued from small-scale, supposedly humane farms. His stories also uncovered the hidden victims of breeding chickens for backyard eggs – the roosters. We wrapped up the weekend with a call to action by Robert Grillo, executive director of Free from Harm.

Watch the Videos:

We invite you to watch the individual presentations from this important online conference. Just go to https://humanehoax.org/speaker-videos to watch and share them on your social media pages.