This project consisted of a panel discussion and data collection at two events. The Humane Canada's 2025 Summit for Animals (HCSA) held in Montréal, Canada, is the biggest and most well-attended animal welfare conference in Canada, with participants from various fields such as advocacy, education, policy, law enforcement, animal care, academia and the public. This was an ideal venue to have a panel discussion with animal welfare scientists presenting different perspectives about farm animal welfare. Additionally, we held a workshop on similar themes at the International Society for Applied Ethology (ISAE) North American Regional meeting (Guelph, Ontario). This workshop was held with meeting attendees, including animal welfare scientists, ethologists, and policy makers. Through these events, we aimed to create a diverse conversation on how to sustainably continue efforts to improve farm animal welfare in Canada. 

At the HSCA, a 60-minute panel session, titled “How to avoid a polarised future? Multi-perspectives on the future of farm animal welfare in Canada”, was held. It focused on how science can engage diverse groups involved in farm animal welfare to ensure a sustainable future and avoid polarised debates. At the regional ISAE meeting, we organised a 90-minute workshop on the theme of “Avoiding a polarised future: Synthesising diverse perspectives on the future of farm animal welfare” to stimulate a dialogue among applied ethologists on how science can engage diverse stakeholders to ensure a sustainable, non-polarised future for farm animal welfare. At both events, we used a frame reflection exercise to first summarise how delegates answered the question “What does it mean to you to be a good farmer?” in a survey and then asked people to think about the same question from another perspective.

Through the two events and qualitative data collection, the team gained insight into different perspectives on what a good farmer/good farming is. Although there were differences depending on work role, and which perspective was assigned in the frame reflection activity, we saw common ground and possible directions to converge. Being open to diverse opinions matters, and – as scientists – we should especially be mindful of the multiple perspectives, trying to incorporate them into how we conduct and disseminate our research. Our next steps are to extract all data collected from these two events and further mobilise the knowledge we gained. We would hope to have the resources to conduct similar frame reflection activities with other interested parties, such as farmers, policy makers, and citizens.