Strengthening pathways to action for just and sustainable livestock systems.
CRILS is an inclusive network that brings together academics and civil society through a series of workshops. Join us and share your ideas to further this critical agenda.
Why this network?
How livestock systems are governed and controlled matters because it shapes the food system. An industrial livestock system is characterised by low genetic diversity and, in some cases, high stocking density, vertical integration, and/or corporate consolidation. However, industrial farming has also boosted the availability of affordable and in-demand animal-sourced foods and advanced food security. Intensive systems are proposed as a solution to address animal-sourced food demand in a land-sparing manner, among some communities. But at what cost and for whom?
The externalities of industrialised livestock production systems may heighten vulnerability to pandemic threats, food insecurity and climate change. The burden of which can be higher in the Global South. Poorly considered industrialised systems can contribute to land dispossession, biodiversity loss, degraded animal welfare, poor working conditions, and the erosion of traditional and indigenous knowledge among other effects.
The CRILS Network provides a platform to facilitate nuanced conversations on the impacts of industrial livestock production on our food systems.
If you’re interested in co-developing or sharing the network with other interested people, please click here to read more about ways of getting involved in the CRILS Network.
Our Goals
The Critical Research on Industrial Livestock Systems (CRILS) Network aims to understand the trade-offs of large-scale, industrial livestock systems and to use available evidence to advocate for just and sustainable food systems, especially in the Global South. The network brings together researchers and non-academics including civil society, activists, policy-makers, industry actors, and lawyers among others, to challenge and nuance narratives of livestock production systems.
Connect researchers
We aim to connect researchers in a supportive research environment to share ideas and disseminate research on improving or challenging industrial livestock systems. The network will platform early-career participants and participants from marginalised communities, and research conducted in Global South settings by local actors. We need nuanced and diversified knowledge bases to contribute to existing research narratives on industrialised animal agriculture.
Connect academics and frontline workers
Much of academic research remains within academic boundaries, behind paywalls and/or written in inaccessible and jargon-filled language. We aim to connect researchers with non-academic actors (lawyers, activists, campaigners, workers, journalists, industry professionals and community organisers) for bi-directional learning to improve the relevance and accessibility of research.
Strengthen pathways to actions
There is no single action or outcome that will transform livestock systems. Instead, the CRILS Network will provide a fertile ground to understand the processes and pathways towards improving action. In its current iteration, the CRILS Network aims to focus on research dissemination and connecting academic researchers and non-academic actors to improve research impact and develop evidence-based strategies for systems change.
Our Actions
How will we achieve these goals?
CRILS will run a series of interactive workshops online and in person to facilitate an open and organic space for researchers and change-makers to connect, cross-pollinate ideas, and share tactics. Additionally, we will provide support for developing skills in research dissemination.
CRILS is committed to ensuring this process is participatory and that the spaces and events we host are free of bigotry, oppression, and brutality in all forms.
Click below to find out about CRILS activities in 2023-2024.
In person at RVC, London
The CRILS Network hosted a two-day, in-person workshop and a public lecture to bring academics and non-academics together at the Royal Veterinary College, London, United Kingdom.
Join our interactive online workshops to share and discuss your work
2025 Series
ONLINE WORKSHOPS
CRILS will host a series of online workshops consisting of open discussions and training sessions to share skills and experiences of translating research into action. The workshops will cross-pollinate ideas between academic and non-academic actors, enabling participants to strengthen their research practice.
If you’re interested in co-developing an online workshop or supporting the CRILS Network, please click here. If you’d like to suggest an idea or presenter for an online workshop, submit an idea here.
PAST: Rethinking Animal Welfare
Advocating for animal welfare to reform or challenge industrial livestock systems requires localised and adaptable strategies that engage a wide range of actors, from farm workers and retailers to children coming to terms with the ethics of eating animals. Bidirectional knowledge exchange between European and African contexts can increase the chance of success. Animal welfare advancements in East Africa’s rapidly expanding industrial animal farming sectors need to be Africa-led.
This CRILS workshop was co-organised by Prof. Christine Nicol (Royal Veterinary College), Judy Muriithi (Lawyers for Animal Protection, Africa) and Dr Victor Yamo (International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)).
Click below to access the recording, presentations and further readings.
PAST: Global Capital and Big Livestock
The flow of global capital administered by corporate regimes and international financial institutions has created asymmetries of power and increased corporate concentration, shifting the way animal-sourced foods are produced and consumed. The workshop will unpack how global finance and corporate consolidation shape livestock systems.
This CRILS workshop was co-organised by Kezia Kershaw and Bianca Ines-Pedro (Stop Financing Factory Farming Campaign) and Mehroosh Tak (CRILS, RVC).
Click below to access the recording, presentations and further readings.
PAST: Aquaculture: A new frontier in food colonialism
Aquaculture is often plugged as a ‘sustainable solution’ to relieving the burden of overfishing, climate change, and ecological damage on ocean life. A new report by Feedback and a coalition of West African and Norwegian organisations including Greenpeace Africa, reveals how the Norwegian salmon industry’s voracious appetite for wild fish is driving loss of livelihoods and malnutrition in West Africa, creating a new type of food colonialism. Their research shows that every year, nearly 2 million tonnes of wild fish are extracted from the ocean to feed Norwegian farmed salmon. This session will explore the ethical and environmental impacts of the Norwegian salmon farming industry on the Global South.
Presentations from Amelia Cookson (Campaigner, Feedback) and Dr Aliou Ba (Ocean Campaign Lead, Greenpeace Africa). Facilitated by Maria Garza (RVC).
Click here to access the recordings, presentations and further readings.
PAST: The Politics of Meat
Divergent values on who eats meat, and which animals are deemed acceptable to eat, can drive deep political and cultural wedges whilst livestock industries continue to expand unabated. Twin forces of Hindu nationalism and neoliberalism unfold in India’s bovine economy, revealing their often-devastating material and economic impact on the country’s poor. Paradoxically, entrenched Hindu nationalist and populist aggression and violent disciplinary action against eating cows, occurs alongside one of the world’s largest export-oriented and corporately owned beef meat industries. This online workshop will chart the historical and political forces driving this dual acceleration in beef production and anti-cow Hindu nationalism and consider opportunities for progressive counter-mobilisation.
Presentations from Jostein Jakobsen and Kenneth Bo Nielsen (University of Oslo) on their latest book (Authoritarian Populism and Bovine Political Economy in Modi’s India) and Sagari Ramdas (Food Sovereignty Alliance , India). Facilitated by Mehroosh Tak (RVC).
Click here to access the recordings, presentations and further readings.
PAST: Ecolinguistics: language and human-animal relationships
Language - the words, body language, and tone - we use to describe nature and more-than-human organisms represents and lays the foundations for how we value the life of those we co-habit this world with. This session drew on science-fiction, ecological philosophy, auto-ethnographic research, sound and videos, to explore how we might more towards more reciprocal and less extractive ways of engaging in multi-species relationships.
This session was facilitated by Deniz Diler (PhD Candidate, University of Manchester), Topo Mokokwane (PhD Candidate, University of Manchester), and Samar Nasrullah Khan (PhD Candidate, Meertens Institute, and independent artist) and chaired by Zip Walton (RVC).
Click here to access the recordings, notes, presentations and readings.
PAST: Biosecurity in context
Disease outbreaks in industrial animal agriculture are growing in scale, frequency and impact, compounded by climate change and an increasingly globalized and concentrated production system. But current biosecurity measures tend to accelerate a trend towards homogenous, standardised and less resilient systems. What would it look like to co-create biosecurity measures that account for the complexity of differing social, environmental, ethical and economic priorities? What do we need to do to achieve biosecurity in context and what are the structural barriers to achieving this?
Prof. Stephen Hinchliffe chaired this workshop with Prof. Nenene Qekwana (University of Pretoria), a vet and academic in South Africa, and Nathalia Brichet and Frida Hastrup (University of Copenhagen), social scientists in Denmark.
Click here to access the recordings, presentations and further readings.
PAST: Art For Critical Research Practice: Unpacking Industrial Livestock Through Arts-Based Research
This workshop explores arts as a tool for collective re-learning, for reclaiming the commons, and for dismantling colonial structures of knowledge and food production, with Cooking Sections artist duo Alon Schwabe and Dr Daniel Fernández Pascual (School of Architecture, Royal College of Art), and Maya Marshak (Bio-economy Research, University of Cape Town). Chaired by Dr Andrew Bennie Senior Researcher in Climate Policy and Food Systems (Institute of Economic Justice, South Africa).
Click here to access the recordings, presentations and further readings.
PAST: Livestock in Protracted Crises
Pressures of Industrialisation In Settler-Colonial And Conflict-Affected Areas
Chaired by Prof. Lisa Boden (Dean of Veterinary Medicine and Head of Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh), this workshop brought together Dr Moayyad Bsharat (Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), Palestine), who shared his experiences as a veterinarian working extensively with communities in Palestine, and Prof. Ian Scoones (Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex) who presented on the PASTRES project’s insights on neoliberalism, land reform and pastoralism in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Click here to access the recordings, presentations and further readings.
Southern Perspectives on Just Transitions from Industrial Livestock: Nigeria and South Africa
Livestock plays a contested role in socially just transitions towards sustainable food systems, with its hotly debated effects on nutrition, public health, greenhouse gas emissions, and biodiversity and its unequally distributed contributions to national economies. This workshop explores Southern variation in just transitions in the livestock sector, comparing South African and Nigerian vantage points, unpacking complexities and navigating the grey areas between food sovereignty and a fully industrialised economy. This workshop aims to emphasise intervention points in food system governance to co-create socially just and sustainable livestock systems with farmers, researchers, government and civil society.
Andrew Bennie (Institute of Economic Justice, South Africa) will present on potential routes for a just transition of the beef sector in South Africa, which has predominant arrangements of industrial animal agriculture characterised by socio-economic inequalities. Elujulo Opeyemi (Youth in Agroecology Restoration Network) will present on participatory and democratic processes for the transition to agroecology in Nigeria, where livestock rearing is still predominantly small-scale. With recent foreign investments into infrastructure for industrial animal agriculture and regional demographic and economic changes, Nigeria’s livestock sector is at a pivotal point. This workshop will be chaired by Sol Cuevas (Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, CSIC, Spain).
10 April | 1600-1800 GMT+1/1700-1900 SAST
Past Workshops
PAST: Feeding The World? Environmental Governance of Industrial Livestock's Appetite for Latin American Soy
Soy has risen to be one of the world’s most economically significant and environmentally destructive agri-food commodities, with its reliance on fossil fuels and the demands of consuming regions (e.g. the USA, China and the EU) driving significant changes in the agricultural practices and food systems of producing regions (e.g. Brazil, Argentina).
This workshop charted the pathways for environmental governance of Brazilian soy to limit the harmful effects of its global value chain and explore strategies for building internationalist solidarity against the impacts of feed, with presentations from Dr Paulina Flores Martinez (University of York, SEI-affiliated Researcher, UK) and Andrea Echeverri (Global Forest Coalition, Colombia). Chaired by Helena Paul (EcoNexus, UK).
Click here to access the recordings, presentations and further readings.