Advance animal agriculture at the Animal Agriculture Alliance’s 2024 Stakeholders Summit

At the Animal Agriculture Alliance, we know that even though meat, dairy, poultry, eggs and seafood play a key role in nourishing people globally, it can be a real struggle to ensure that animal agriculture is considered an equal partner in important sustainability conversations.

That’s why we take every opportunity to engage and protect the role of farmers, ranchers, veterinarians, animal feed companies, processors, allied associations, and others who provide wholesome, sustainable, and irreplaceable animal-source foods for our diets.

As we head into the last months of 2023 and look ahead to next year, we are thrilled to announce the theme of our 2024 Stakeholders Summit: “Ready, Set, Solve! Advancing Animal Agriculture,” scheduled for May 8-9 in Kansas City, Missouri. The Alliance is tapping into the 2024 Olympics theme, with an emphasis on propelling animal agriculture toward the ever-evolving finish line as we all work to reach our collective goals.

Our 2024 Summit will bring together dozens of expert speakers, hundreds of participants, and countless ideas for how we can come together as a unified team committed to driving forward solutions for a resilient animal agriculture community and healthy, sustainable diets.

We are now seeking keynote and panel proposals for sessions that will provide unique and thought-provoking ideas and focus on actionable tools Summit attendees can immediately use and implement. The deadline for speaker proposals is November 22. We invite you to get more information and find submission details here: https://bit.ly/AAA24RFP.

Given the importance of the opportunities and challenges we continue to face, we look forward to continuing our work to advance animal agriculture in the upcoming year. And it’s never too early to think about how you can be involved in our 2024 Summit.

Joining us on stage is just one way to help advance the community’s goals. Participants can also reconnect with colleagues, build new relationships, drive dynamic conversations, share their experiences, and learn from each other throughout the Summit. Registration will open in early 2024, and a tentative schedule will be made available at that time. Meanwhile, you can check the Summit website for the latest updates and follow #AAA24 on social media.

The upcoming Summit also provides an opportunity to share new perspectives and build on insights shared during our 2023 Summit, where (in case you missed it!) highlights included:

• Keynote speaker Ray Starling, North Carolina Chamber of Commerce general counsel and former chief of staff to USDA Secretary Perdue, gave us a peek inside his book Farmers Versus Foodies, which examines gaps between food “insiders” who are generally proud of our food system’s achievements and others who are convinced the food system is irrevocably “broken.”
• Aimpoint Research senior intelligence analyst Danielle Cummins reminded our audience: “It’s not just about facts. It’s not just about education. It’s about trust.” Consumers, she said, are not a monolith, and it’s important to remember they are also customers. If they don’t trust the food we make, animal agriculture will lose its place at the table.
• Trusted opinion leaders and social media influencers, like dietitian Nicole Rodriguez and author Michele Payn, encouraged animal agriculture stakeholders to build partnerships across the supply chain and with communicators to help fix the “disconnect between who’s talking about our food supply and who is actually connected with it.”

If you weren’t able to join us at the 2023 Summit or want to revisit these and other great sessions, we’ve made recordings available here. A detailed report with highlights, main takeaways, and speaker quotes is also available here.

In addition to the Summit, this year offered many other great opportunities for animal agriculture, including this month’s Protein PACT Summit hosted by our partners at the North American Meat Institute, who published their second annual continuous improvement report.

Safeguarding the future of animal agriculture takes all of us working together, and I am so proud of this community’s endless drive for improvement. I encourage everyone to join the Alliance in conversation online (Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook) and to learn more about continuous improvements across animal agriculture, for example work by our partners in the Protein PACT for the People, Animals & Climate of Tomorrow (LinkedIn Twitter, Instagram, Facebook).

Read the article on LinkedIn.