As part of the Animal Agriculture Alliance’s mission to safeguard the future of animal agriculture, we work to make sure that farm and food communities have all the facts about what animal activist groups are really working toward. That’s why we’ve recently released two new reports that break down the strategic coordination and funding behind these organizations.
The first report, “Radical Vegan Activism,” looks back at statistics from 2024 to show the tactics, targets and driving ideologies of key players within the movement. The numbers tell an important story, with nearly one-quarter of all documented activist attacks focusing on farms and food businesses. It is of note that research institutions were reported to be the most targeted overall. When it comes to agriculture, documented actions included vandalism (59 incidents), animal theft or release (43 cases) and trespassing (31 cases).
The second report, the “Major Animal Activist Groups Web,” outlines the connections between well-known organizations based on staffing, funding and project collaboration.
While some of these groups have a more public-facing presence — such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) or Humane World for Animals (formerly Humane Society of the United States) — and often engage with the public and are seen on television commercials, others are working behind the scenes pushing legislation that is unfavorable to agriculture and, even in some cases, stealing animals from farms and facilities. The point of the “Major Animal Activist Groups Web” is to show that though groups may differ on how they get their point across, they are all working together in some ways to push for changes in modern animal agriculture that drive up the cost of production and threaten the availability of animal-sourced protein.
The web is updated annually with the inclusion of new connections and organizations. A key theme identified in this latest update was a focus on legal collaboration between groups. For example, Animal Activist Legal Defense Project is working to appeal a 2023 felony conviction of Wayne Hsiung, founder of Direct Action Everywhere and Simple Heart Initiative (a new addition to the web this year after holding an “animal rescue” event in Washington, D.C., this past March). Other legal focused groups recently added include The Brooks Institute and Legal Impact for Chickens.
The groups highlighted in this report represent a fraction of the activist landscape, yet together, based on the latest publicly available financial information, pull in more than $865 million a year — a significant jump from $800 million last year. As funding for activism grows, it’s more important than ever for those of us in the farm and food community to share our own stories. If we don’t speak up about what really happens on farms, we risk letting activist groups tell that story for us.