Factory Farming Awareness Coalition
CITY AS SYLLABUS SPRING 2022

Welcome to class! My name is Julieta Cardenas and I will be leading you through an 8 week course where you will learn to engage with intersectional issues surrounding factory farming through readings, videos, discussions and an advocacy project of your own creation!

• Week 1 we will discuss environment, workers and public health
• Week 2 & 3 we will be looking into the main groups of animals exploited in factory farming: birds, pigs, cows & fish
• Week 4 we will start working on advocacy projects and will discuss racism and food justice
• Week 5 we will continue to work on advocacy projects and will discuss disability
• Week 6 we will continue to work on advocacy projects and will discuss sexism
• Week 7 we will continue to work on advocacy projects and will discuss indigenous perspectives
• Week 8 we will finish up projects and do presentations ending with a small celebration =]

Week 1

Environment

Required Reading:

• Our World in Data “Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture”
• Mongabay “Brazilian beef industry plays outsized role in tropical carbon emissions” (just the bullet points)
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America “The opportunity cost of animal based diets exceeds all food losses” ( just Significance and Abstract)

Watch:

• Democracy Now “North Carolina Hog Farms Spray Manure Around Black Communities; Residents Fight Back” (start at 42 min)

Workers and Social Justice

Read:

• Food Empowerment Project “Slaughterhouse Workers”
• NPR “Working ‘The Chain,’ Slaughterhouse Workers Face Lifelong Injuries”

Public Health

• Sentient Media “Factory Farms Are the Perfect Breeding Ground for Zoonotic Diseases”

Week 2

Birds

Read:

• Farm Sanctuary “Chickens”
• Animal Cognition “Thinking chickens: a review of cognition, emotion and behavior in the domestic chicken” (read abstract, introduction, emotion, and conclusion)

Watch:

• "Chicks Debeaked with Laser Beaks Cut" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLuqQcp8SfY
• "The High Cost of Cheap Meat: Male Chicks Shredded" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4BA__Q27VQ
• "Rescue Turkey Spoiled By New Parents As He Learns To Walk Again" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkMZExRIMWA

Pigs

• Farm Sanctuary “An Exploration of the Cognitive Complexity of Sus Domesticus, The Domestic Pig” (read “I” am pig!)
• https://www.farmsanctuary.org/pigs/
• Vox “How Black North Carolinians pay the price for the world’s cheap bacon”
  

WEEK 3

Cows

Read:

• Farm Sanctuary “Thinking cows: a review of cognition, emotion and the social lives of cows” (read play, social complexity and learning, personality)

Watch:

• "Rescued Cow Crying for Missing Baby REUNITED" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQi72EhJTug

Fish

Read:

• Animal Sentience “Fish are Smart and Feel Pain: What About Joy?”

Watch:

• "Will The Ocean Ever Run Out Of Fish?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNdR808jMSA&t=44s
• "Gambia, The Smell of Money" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9X8nFt5x-I

Field Trip (WetLab- Pier 40)

WEEK 4

Racism and Food Justice

• Yes Magazine “4 Not-So-Easy Ways to Dismantle Racism in the Food System”
• Aphro-ism "Why animal liberation requires an epistemological revolution"

Work on Projects in Class

WEEK 5

Disability

Read:

• The New Inquiry “On Ableism and Animals”

Sanctuary Visit

WEEK 6

Sexism

Read:

• SATYA “Their Bodies Our Selves: Moving Beyond Speciesism and Sexism”

Work on Projects in Class

WEEK 7

Indigenous Perspectives

• Buffalo Field Campaign “Slaughter History of Yellowstone Buffalo”
• Civil Eats “How the Navajo Nation is Reclaiming Food Sovereignty”

Community Garden Visit

Week 8

Finish Projects

Celebratory Meal / Presentations!