Stories Sustain Us # 38 – Factory Farming: A Journey of Compassion and Change

Summary
In this conversation, Thom Norman shares his journey from a typical upbringing in London to becoming an advocate for animal welfare through his organization, FarmKind. He discusses the pivotal moments that shaped his views on factory farming and animal rights, including personal experiences and his transition from a career in music to law. Thom emphasizes the importance of compassion for all animals and the ethical implications of our food choices. In this conversation, Thom Norman discusses his journey from a varied career path to founding FarmKind, a non-profit organization focused on improving the welfare of farmed animals. He emphasizes the importance of ethical living, the impact of personal choices on animal welfare, and the need for increased funding for animal charities. The discussion also covers the challenges of factory farming, the role of sustainability in animal welfare, and the innovative tools FarmKind provides, such as the Compassion Calculator, to help individuals make a positive impact. Thom shares his vision for a future without factory farming, highlighting the potential benefits for animals, the environment, and human health.

About the Guest
Thom Norman is the co-founder of FarmKind, a nonprofit dedicated to accelerating the end of factory farming by empowering compassionate people to make a difference. After working as a nuclear energy lawyer, Thom launched FarmKind to help everyone make a difference in the lives of the animals most in need: those suffering in factory farms.

Show Notes
FarmKind: https://www.farmkind.giving/

Takeaways
•Food choices are deeply personal and culturally significant.
•Many people care about animal welfare but may not engage with the issue.
•Thom's early life was shaped by a strong sense of community and family values.
•He initially resisted the idea of supporting animal charities, focusing instead on human issues.
•His academic journey led him to study classical music before pivoting to law.
•Working in public relations and marketing helped him realize his desire to help others.
•Thom's experience with the immigration system motivated him to become a lawyer.
•He emphasizes the emotional connections we have with pets and their similarities to farm animals.
•Founding Farm Kind was a culmination of his personal values and professional experiences. Football is a beautiful game that fosters creativity.
•Being a fan can lead to emotional highs and lows.
•The animal welfare movement faces significant funding challenges.
•FarmKind aims to bridge the funding gap for animal charities.
•Small donations can have a large impact on animal welfare.
•The Compassion Calculator helps individuals understand their impact.
•Factory farming is inefficient and harmful to the environment.
•Sustainability and animal welfare are interconnected.
•Everyone can make a difference through small actions.
•A future without factory farming is achievable and beneficial.

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Transcript

Steven 
Factory farming. It's a system that supplies most of the world's meat, dairy, and eggs. But it comes with a heavy cost. From environmental damage to the suffering of billions of animals, the impact is undeniable. But what if there was a way to create a future without factory farming? One where our food choices reflect compassion and sustainability? My guest today believes that future is within reach. Hey everybody.

I'm Steven Schauer and welcome to Stories Sustain Us, where we explore the stories of individuals working to make our world a better, more sustainable place. Today I'm sitting down with Thom Norman, the co-founder of FarmKind. His journey from a career as a nuclear energy lawyer to launching a nonprofit dedicated to animal welfare is as inspiring as it is impactful. Thom's personal experiences shaped his understanding of compassion.

leading him to create a tool called the Compassion Calculator, a resource designed to show how small actions can lead to significant change. We'll hear how Thom's early resistance to supporting animal charities transformed into a passion for bridging the funding gap for organizations fighting to end factory farming. We'll also explore why sustainability and animal welfare are deeply interconnected and how each of us

can contribute to building a future without factory farming. And listen, this isn't gonna be about trying to get you to stop eating meat and dairy. Rather, Thom is offering a solution for how you can support kinder, more sustainable farming, which is better for you and farm animals. Here's a little bit more about my guest, Thom Norman. He's the co-founder of FarmKind, a nonprofit dedicated to accelerating the end of factory farming.

by empowering compassionate people to make a difference. After working as a nuclear energy lawyer, Thom launched FarmKind to help everyone make a difference in the lives of the animals most in need, though suffering in factory farms. It's a powerful conversation about how even the smallest choices can lead to significant change. So stay with me as we dive into Thom's remarkable journey right here on Stories Sustain Us, where we are inspiring action through the power of storytelling.

Steven 
Thom, welcome to Stories Sustain Us. How are you?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Hi, yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm doing great today, thank you.

Steven 
Yeah, it's lovely to meet you and I guess it's afternoon for you. I'm over here in the Seattle area. It's kind of early morning for me in the recording and it's probably mid afternoon for you. Tell everybody where you are from right now.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, thank you for getting up early to chat to me. So I'm based in London in the UK, which is surprisingly sunny today. It's like 18 degrees Celsius. yeah, so it's been nice. It's like the first proper sort of summery type day we've had this year.

Steven 
Yeah,

we're happy spring equinox. We're recording this on the first day of spring. So it looks like you guys have some. We don't here in Seattle. It's a rainy day here for us. Winter's hanging on a little bit longer. So, well, Thom, I'm really eager to get to know you and get to know your story, your personal story and the story of farm kind. And thank you for reaching out, by the way. You know, I scour the, know.

Thom Norman - FarmKind
no.

Steven 
the internet reading stories and looking for folks to invite on the show and you were kind enough to reach out and after watching I guess one of my episodes and saying you had a story to tell so I'm really here to hear it. So what's your story Thom? Tell me a little bit about your journey and then we'll get into a farm kind.

Thom Norman - FarmKind
Yeah, sure. I think, so we're gonna talk today about, I guess, kind of animal welfare and particularly factory farming. So I think where I guess I would like to start is my own story about how I kind of found out about this stuff and how I got into it. Because I think the thing is like, we often, this can be a really difficult conversation. And so I think it's really good to start with like, you know, I guess saying like,

Where I came from was living off of microwave chicken curry meals. As a young man in my first job, I just come home and throw one of these in the microwave. That was what I was eating all the time. Animal welfare was not anywhere near the top of my priority list. And then one day on a London Underground tube train, I kind of, that's that.

Steven 
Sure.

Thom Norman - FarmKind
things changed for me. So I was sitting there with my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife. And there was like these, they have these like little posters, kind of advertisements, right? And one of them is for kind of, I like an animal welfare charity, like about sort of factory farming and stuff like this. And my partner starts to try and engage me with it about this and talk about it. my initial, I felt myself like very quickly becoming quite defensive and like,

Steven 
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
And of course, you know, what happens in factory farms is awful. of course, it's like we shouldn't treat animals like this. But really, like, what we should do is the government should put some regulations in, a basic animal welfare standard. So like, that's how this problem should be solved. Like, this has got nothing to do with me, right? Like this is, you know. And yeah, exactly, exactly. I've got to get home to my my microwave curry meal, right? And I guess like...

Steven 
Yeah.

Right. I got stuff to do today.

Right.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Excuse me. She says to me like you're not you're not gonna do that. Are you you're not you're not in the government You're not gonna change the law and It just kind of like it kind of like hit me a bit that one I don't really know why but afterwards I was thinking like I got really defensive like really fast in this conversation and She is I think she's right and I think the problem is I don't like you know that that has consequences for me and

Steven 
Yeah, yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
I think it's not like, oh, I changed overnight and I completely changed my life and started the charity straight away or anything like that. This was the start of a long process for me of reading some books and finding out some information and starting to engage with this issue a bit more. But I think the reason I think this is a really great place to start is because I think for many people when they start trying to think about the animals that we use for food in factory farms,

Steven 
Right, right.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
what we eat and how we engage with animals like this is so personal. Food is such a culturally important thing. It's wrapped up with all these memories of childhood and all this stuff. And it can be really easy to feel like, oh, I don't like this conversation. And so I just want to say, I get that. That's where I started to. But I think that if we can just like...

Steven 
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
allow ourselves to kind of like lower those defenses for a minute and realize that actually like basically all of us really care about animals. We all like don't want to see them suffer unnecessarily. I think that's a really good place for us to start and then we can kind of like move forward to talk about these issues and see where that conversation goes, you know?

Steven 
Yeah,

yeah, that's brilliant. Thank you for kind of starting us with with that kind of foundation of let's just kind of acknowledge the uncomfortableness of the conversation that that's coming. I appreciate that. And that that sets it to me. It sets a good tone of like, hey, we're to be real in this conversation. We're not going to dance around the fact that that, you know, this might be a hard conversation. So I really appreciate you kind of starting with that foundation.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah.

Steven 
May I back you up in time a little bit before that day on the London Tube and and find out a little bit more about you know, are you born and raised in London or you know, how did you get from you know early on to that day in the London Tube because there's there's clearly a story there and Read a little bit about your bio and I'm real eager to Learn a little bit about what you were doing at that time before you got into farm kind because it sounds like you've had a an interesting life journey as well, so

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

Steven 
Yeah, born and raised in London or what's your story there?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yes, was born in London and then my family moved soon after I was born out of London because the area of London I was born in was quite a rough area, quite a lot of crime, the local primary school for kindergarten had a knife policy for how they were going to make sure that their kids didn't come to school with the knives.

Steven 
Sure.

Yeah. goodness. Yeah. Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
So my

parents were like, you know, let's not raise our child there. Let's go somewhere else. Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty glad they made that choice. So I grew up in a small town kind of just outside of London. It was kind of like a mix of lots of agricultural people and people involved in farming, and then also people who would travel into bigger towns and cities for work. And that was kind of the sort of vibe of the town.

Steven 
Yeah, seems reasonable. Yeah.

Okay.

Sure. And brothers, sisters, only child or yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, no, yeah,

I have a brother. Yeah, just one brother who's a few years younger than me. And yeah, was like a very normal childhood. My family's very involved in the local church. so I would, when walking down the high street, typically see at least one or two people that I knew from that church and stuff like this. So it's a very kind of yeah, small town, know lots of people around, kind of.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
kind of environment very different to now living in London which is like you know...

Steven 
Sure. I love London,

but I've been there a handful of times and it's a thrilling city to be in. But I can appreciate the magnitude of just the crush of people as well, because it is such a giant international city. So I appreciate that.

So growing up in school, obviously as you already shared, you weren't struck with the idea of taking care of factory farming in a better way when you were a child. So what was, as you were growing up, what were you doing? What was life like for you?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, so I've always been fairly academically strong and stuff like this, I was kind of a lazy but got good grades kind of student. actually the very first thing I ever did around... So I think I always, and I think this is partly because of growing up in the church, I always had this quite strong idea that like...

Steven 
Yeah.

Sure, I can relate to that.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
part of what life is about is about helping others. I remember, like this is the first thing I ever, it's very ironic given what I do now, but when I was in like senior school, was like, there towards the end of my like school time, we had this like, organized this like fundraiser. So like every year they're like the kind of older kids are supposed to organize a school fundraiser and you pick a charity to like, to raise money for and you do it by like voting amongst the kids and

Steven 
Sure, that's great, that's brilliant.

Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
I was in charge of this thing and there were like two charities that were like kind of like picked and one of them was an animal charity and at the time I was super against this I was like we should not do an animal charity like why are we helping animals when there are so many people you know like starving and in poverty and you need a lot of help we should do something for like you know I think I wanted to do a charity that was like

Steven 
Right.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
on like, I think it was like trying to help people suffering with HIV in Africa, something like this. Which is deeply ironic, what I do now. Yeah, also, yeah, also really important. Yeah, exactly, really important. But yes, I was very against the animal charity at that time, which I think is funny considering what I do these days.

Steven
Sure, sure. A very noble, very important, very serious issue, right? Still ongoing, unfortunately. Right, of course, right.

Yeah, it

is. That is a good bit of irony in your life. So, so where you end up going to university, I'm assuming, and what are you academically pursuing then in your in your life?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, so I ended up going to university to study composing classical music. Which was, yeah, so was a bit of a left turn. So when I was in school, I started playing in rock bands and I got really into blues music. Stevie Ray Vaughan and this kind of electric blues. Yeah, it's so good, so good. Yeah, oh yeah, of course, yeah. Yeah, so I had this DVD of one of his live shows. I think it was in Houston, actually.

Steven 
No kidding.

Yeah. he's brilliant. yeah. Yeah. I grew up in Texas and Stevie Ray Vaughan is an icon there. Yeah.

Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind
And

it was just so cool, like he's playing his guitar behind his neck and all this stuff, it was amazing.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's

so good. Tragic gloss when he passed. But yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Amazing, phenomenal musician. so I was really into that and then kind of really at the end of my school journey, was like, actually, I classical music is really cool too. Like I had a great teacher who kind of introduced me to some amazing music like Stravinsky and Debussy and these kind of people. So I taught myself to read music because I didn't read music at the time and applied for like conservatoires, music universities.

Steven 
Yeah.

It is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
and somehow managed to get myself into the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama up in Glasgow to study writing music. So that's what I did for university. And yeah.

Steven 
Wow. Yeah, yeah.

So you said you were in a rock band or so did you play an instrument before you learned how to be kind of self-taught both the instrument as well as the music reading? that what I'm hearing?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
So I had some guitar teachers. I played electric guitar and I had a few guitar teachers. But yeah, I taught myself to read music and I taught myself to write music as well. Which was, yeah, it good fun.

Steven 
Yeah, the card, okay.

That's amazing. Yeah. So

what is life like then for you in Glasgow as a young, I'm assuming, aspiring musician slash composer slash, I mean, what, what was, what was going on for you at that, at that point?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, so Glasgow is a city with a very bad reputation, at least in the UK, but it's a really nice, it's like a really good place. It's kind of like, I think of it as like a bit of a mini London, because it has a lot of the kind of cultural stuff and like the entertainment and great culture and great restaurants and all this sort of stuff, but in like in quite a small place. And you can like get out to mountains within like a sort of, you know, 40 minute train journey. So it's a really, it's a great city. I love, I love Glasgow.

Steven 
Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
So I love being there, I love being in Glasgow and kind of yeah, like sort of writing music and like going to concerts and being around creative people and musicians. There's an amazing art school there as well, so I some friends who went there and kind of just yeah, really sort of immersing myself in culture and things like that.

Steven 
So moving through then, what's the next progression then? you're, you know, are you pursuing this career before you get back to London on the tube with your then girlfriend or how's the story progressing next for you?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah

Yeah,

so I, then I made it in my second kind of like big pivot. So I went out of university and it's really like, I was like, it's very hard to get a job as a musician. I was feeling a bit burnt out. think actually sometimes taking something you really love doing and turning it into a job can, isn't always the best idea. And I felt that about this where I kind of like trying to like put the pressure on to like succeed actually kind of like made it less of what I liked about it.

Steven 
Sure.

Sure. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it takes some of joy

out of it, right? Yeah, yeah, my wife's an incredible painter and she experienced a similar time in her life when she thought she was gonna paint for a living and it just kind of sucked some of the experience out of it when you're having to make sure that your art is...

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, exactly.

Hmm

Steven 
you know, getting you paid, you know, necessarily, yeah, loses some of your creative freedom and things of that nature. Yeah, so I can appreciate that, that may be something similar you were experiencing.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, commercial and not just what you want to paint and stuff like this. Yeah.

Yeah, and so I worked for a few years in public relations and marketing things. And then I came back to this kind of wanting to help people. So my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife, she was going through the immigration system in the UK, because she's not originally from the UK. And the immigration system in the UK is horrible. It's so complicated, and it's like,

Steven 
yeah.

Yes.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
very unfair. It's been designed over years for political reasons because lots of people kind of like don't like migrants and the people who do like migrants are not very like it's not the top of their priority list and so it's become like it's quite well yeah exactly exactly yeah it can be yeah I think this is a problem around the kind of developed world right yeah and and so I basically I remember I was like

Steven 
Sure.

Yeah. Are you talking about the United States or UK? Because it sounds about the same.

Sure. Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
was walking along at lunchtime thinking about like her situation and was like, well...

I would like, if it came to it, would like do lots of research, I would try and help as much as I could for her. And then I thought to myself, like, if I would do that for her, like why wouldn't I do that for other people too? Because there's lots of people who need help. So I just decided, almost on a whim, I was like, I'm gonna become a lawyer. So I kind of went and did some research, like, oh, it seems like it would be possible, it's gonna take me like five years, but I might be able to achieve this.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Ha ha ha ha.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
And so I did this career, which I kind of went and did a masters in the evening after work. And I became, it did take me about five years, but I became a lawyer working actually in the end, I ended up working for the UK government as a lawyer. I worked on a number of things, I ended up working on nuclear energy policy and trying to kind of like help with the kind of transition away from more.

Steven 
Yeah.

Okay.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
sort of climate intensive kind of ways of powering the country like coal and gas and towards more renewable things like in this case nuclear energy. So I did that.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah.

I am just enamored with your journey. I love hearing people's stories and the pivots that they make, as you said, and how dramatic they can be. you know, who, I'm guessing you weren't thinking as a teenager that someday I'm going to be a nuclear lawyer working for the UK government, you know, but that journey, that path that we all take is, you know, so unique and so beautiful. So I love that story. Thank you for.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
You

Steven 
for sharing that. is that, I'm assuming maybe jumping ahead, is that the career you were in that fateful day on the London Tube?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, yeah, exactly. yeah, we're almost at present day. So yeah, that was what I was doing when I started to think about animal issues. I guess like, so is this starting to think about, you know, sort of thing, I guess in this like, analytical, like this kind of like, this way about like, kind of the principles and like the philosophy. And then I also, me and my wife, we also got some cats.

So we have two beautiful Maine coons called Luna and Sirius. Yeah, they're amazing. like, they're like, I don't know, they're like kind of like, certainly, certainly a male one. He's like the kind of like dog version of a cat, if you like. So he'll like call when you call him and like, he loves to just like cuddle all the time. And they're also like these beautifully like quite large cats. Yeah. But they're like, they're quite good if you live in London because they,

Steven
Oh, Maine Coons, yeah. Those are, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, they're big cats. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
compared to many other cat breeds, they're quite happy to live indoors and it's quite hard to have outdoor cats in London. So we had these cats, Luna and Sirius, many of your listeners have animals, I'm sure, like dogs or cats or whatever. And what you cannot get away from when you live with animals is that they have these completely unique personalities. They're each completely individuals with like...

Steven 
Yeah.

Of course.

Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
You know, my Luna, she's like quite shy sometimes, but she's also like very, like she knows how to like emotionally manipulate you. So if you leave some treats on the countertop, she will come and she'll be so like affectionate. She'll like be headbutting you and like purring and like, because she's like, but the treats are here. Why didn't you give me some of the, you need to give me those now. Whereas Sirius, exactly. She knows exactly what she's doing. Yeah. Whereas Sirius is like, he's like,

Steven 
Yeah.

Right. Yeah. She's manipulating your emotions. Yeah, absolutely.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
super confident and like very loving but he's also like nowhere near as smart like he doesn't know what's going on like most of the time yeah exactly exactly and he's like just kind of you know just kind of flopping around and like cuddling and he has this like he's like quite he's really big but he has this like little squeak noise that he makes doesn't like he doesn't meow like a normal cat he just kind of does this little high-pitched squeak and the reason I mention this is because you

Steven 
He's just happy to be there.

Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
When you think about these animals and you think about these animals that you love so much and you care about them and you know like spend that fortune, yeah exactly, spend a fortune on pet bills and they are absolutely part of the family. But when we really think about like they're not that different to the other animals that we, you know, that we have in farms like pigs and I mean pigs are smarter than dogs for example like this is like scientifically really well demonstrated and

Steven 
family.

Yeah, yeah.

Sure.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
like chickens have these quite deep emotional... I have a friend who had a pet chicken at one point in time and like yeah and like their relationships with those chickens are like not that different to mine with my cats you know like really not that different and I just can't help thinking you know if somebody was treating my cats the way that people like that we treat animals in farms in factory farms

Steven 
Yeah, yeah, we know some people who go out to pet chickens, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Yep.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Like, I would do absolutely everything I could to end that suffering. And there isn't really any difference between them and the pigs and chickens and cows in factory farming, other than the fact that I just don't have a personal relationship with those animals. Yeah. And that doesn't seem like a good reason not to care to me, you know? It doesn't make them any less valuable or valid as individuals.

Steven 
Yeah, you're not that personally connected to it. Sure.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
it doesn't make their suffering any less meaningful, I don't think. And so I think for me, the way I've ended up founding Farm Kind, our charity, and working on the issue of factory farm animal suffering is putting these two things together, this really strong emotional feeling about animals and care and compassion with this more, I guess, ethical thing about just feeling that

Steven 
Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
understanding that these animals are not different to the other animals or the other beings that like I interact with and when you think you put these two things together this is like a set of values that I think is like quite clearly shows that we should try to relieve unnecessary suffering for these animals if we can.

Steven 
Yeah,

yeah, no, I was listening to another podcast yesterday, actually, Inner Cosmos. It's about brain science and they were having a conversation about consciousness and, you know, trying to...

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Hmm.

Steven 
figure out what it is and where it comes from and all of these mysteries that still remain about just what's going on inside our own minds and there was a real fascinating discussion about you know, are animals conscious? know, is AI conscious? And just this idea that as you just described that these other creatures, you know, clearly have intelligence. They clearly know how to communicate. They clearly have their own individual characteristics. Now we may apply

our human interpretation to them because that's what we do. But that doesn't, as you so rightly pointed out, make them any less valuable or their thought of suffering any less important. So I really appreciate your perspective on that. May I go back and ask you two really important questions before we continue the transition into farm kind? Because I don't want to lose these thoughts. The first.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, of course.

Steven 
important question is, you're a Londoner, who's your team? Premier League, are you a... I'm a big Premier League fan, so I'm just curious.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Nice and so I'm like I'm

a terrible human male in that like actually I'm not that good at sports or into that into sports like I used to I used to be quite into rugby but like Yeah, I'm more of a rugby I used to I used to watch the the six nations which is like Where all the like the four countries in the UK plus France and Italy? Have a game. I used to watch that all the all the time religiously. I love that and

Steven 
Yeah. Yeah.

rugby. I was gonna ask you is it a premier league rugby being in Scotland? It might be rugby. Yeah

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, big rugby tournament. Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
But yeah, I guess if I had to choose one, maybe I'd choose like, I don't know, Arsenal. I think they seem okay, yeah. Is that okay? Is that the right quite answer? Okay.

Steven 
All right. right. right. Thank you for answering for indulging. totally. Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah, of course it is. Yeah. It's, it's,

you're, you're allowed to like who you like, you know, so I'm, I'm a weird and there's probably, if there's anybody, you know, listening to this and they're big giant football fans in UK, they're probably going to hate this answer.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Who's, what's your team?

Steven 
I love the sport. I love watching good games. So, you know, watching the top teams play.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Hmm.

Steven 
I just want to see a good game, I just want to see such a beautiful sport to me the creativity and it's a giant chess match that you know don't know that people over here always fully appreciate and understand that. So I don't know that I have a particular favorite. Man U is obviously top of the list because you know in the 90s that was you know one of the only teams you could ever get to watch over

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah.

Hmm,

Steven 
here,

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
okay, interesting.

Steven 
know, Liverpool menu where kind of occasionally you could catch a match over here on sports channel in the US. So it's not like it is today where you can watch every Premier League game, which is kind of almost what I do these days. So I just love watching good games. don't I'm not a fanatic about any. mean, love Munich and and and you know, obviously the Spanish, Barcelona and Real Madrid. I just love watching the teams play. It's just

a beautiful game to me. I'm sure Arsenal fans or you know somebody else, Man City fans, somebody's mad at me right now because I am not a fanatic but I just love the game. So that's my nice answer.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
You

I think that's a good

answer. think there's been some studies showing how much people who into, who are really into a sports team, how much their happiness fluctuates whether their team is winning or not. And it's like, this doesn't seem worth it. I remember my uncle, so my family is all originally from Birmingham. My uncle is a really big Birmingham City football fan. And my main childhood memory of him...

Steven 
Sure. Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
is like when we were visiting like my grandparents and stuff him coming over after the game always being really upset because they always lost and like I don't know if you know a Birmingham accent but it's already like they all like people from Birmingham always sound a bit sad anyway and so he just like sounded like the most depressed man ever because of his team but

Steven 
Hahaha

Ha ha ha

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I get that. don't.

I don't have those highs and lows of the victory and, you know, I want to go celebrate and, you know, never lose that high and I don't have the lows with something. just I just love watching a good game. So so thank you for indulging me on on on my enjoyment of the Premier League. The other second more important question that I wanted to ask before we transition into farm kind is.

It seems to me that you're now wife has played a pivotal role in your life of career choices, you know, helping you move from, uh, you know, musician, composer, PR, uh, professional into law and now into this amazing nonprofit that you're running. So may I ask what her name is so we can give her some kudos and credit for helping you, um, on your life journey? Cause it sounds

like she's been an incredible positive influence in your life.

Thom Norman - FarmKind
Yeah, she definitely has. So her name is Tashi. Tashi Thomas. she's definitely been a massive influence on me, keeping me focused on trying to live a kind of, I guess, like an ethical life and always sort of challenging me, pushing me to be a better person, I think. And yeah, I mean, one of the things that I really love about her is she's like, I think she's like definitely a lot smarter than me.

Steven 
Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
And so it's good to be proved wrong so often, I think, because that helps me to become a better person.

Steven 
Absolutely. I feel the same way about Ashley, my lovely wife. so Tashi, thank you. If you're listening or watching this, thank you for helping Thom on his journey because he's helping make the world a better place. So I just wanted to give some credit where credit was due, it sounded like. So yeah. So we're we're into farm kind now. How did how did you get from that London tube thinking about your

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Sounds good. Yeah, absolutely.

Steven 
cats and how you wouldn't want them treated in a poor way and eventually now getting to the formation of this non-profit. let us hear that journey and then tell us what it is that you do and looking forward to hearing how we can support you.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, awesome. the way this comes about is, guess, like there's a realization, first of all, which is there is this amazing like David and Goliath story in the animal space. The meat industry, the global meat industry is worth about $2 trillion. The movement to protect and prevent suffering for farmed animals.

has globally about $290 million in funding each annually. So that is for context, that's about two weeks worth of profits at McDonald's. It's like nothing. And this is to help literally billions of animals around the world to try and prevent their suffering. And despite this massive difference in funding, actually,

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
the animal movement is making success. Like is David in Goliath? Because David is actually still, you know, still winning really. So as an example, just a simple example, 15 years ago, only 4 % of chickens raised for, that were being raised to make eggs in the US lived out of cages. So 96 % of chickens lived their entire life in a cage that's about the size, it's about this big, which is, this is like roughly a piece of paper.

And that's all the space that they would have. There were metal grills that can cut up their feet. It's a really, really horrible place. They literally can't even open their wings. And this is where they spend their entire life, is roughly a bit over a year that they live, producing as many eggs as possible. And then when they produce slightly fewer eggs, they're killed. Because of the work of charities like the Humane League working on these campaigns, where they pressure companies like

Walmart or Burger King or KFC to say we we promise we'll stop buying eggs from Caged Hens. Now 40 % of chickens, egg laying chickens in the US live cage free. That's a huge difference in the lives of, yeah, yeah, it's great progress in the lives of hundreds of millions of animals. It's making a really, like doesn't mean their lives are perfect, but it's made a massive transformational difference in the quality of their lives.

Steven 
Yeah, that's a great bit of progress. Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
And the amount of money that was spent on this means that, roughly speaking, it costs about 85 cents per chicken to do this. So for 85 cents, you can give a chicken a completely different kind of life. And this is just one example of the, it's probably one of the most stark, but it's one example of the wins that the animal movement is having to protect and improve the lives of animals. But it's still, like this $290 million is still like,

Steven 
Different life, yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
a really small amount of money. And the biggest thing standing behind between the animal movement and helping more animals is the amount of money. It's just not enough. Yeah, exactly. And so really this is like, FarmKind was created to try to help with this problem, to say, there are great charities doing amazing things, but they're just not getting the support they need. 97 % of donations.

Steven 
support.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
to animals, go to companion animals, so dogs and cats like shelters, this kind of thing. They do some amazing work, that's like globally about 800 million animals, and then you have like 180 billion animals that are in factory farms. So it's just, okay, so we need to like even this up a little bit, you know?

Steven 
Mmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sure, and that

connection you're talking about again, that we feel that more connected to a pet versus a farm animal. So how do we raise that awareness and change people's mindsets around those thought patterns? Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Exactly, Yeah.

so Fankind is, we started, me and my co-founder started this charity to try and fix this problem. But also to help people because one of the things that I find amazing is actually like how we don't, tend to think of ourselves, think, an ordinary person, like, you know, I try and help people out and try to do my bit. We don't actually always realize how

how much impact we can have on the world, how much positive impact we can have. So to me, the idea that I can, for like a few dollars, transform the life of an animal for about $5,000 roughly, you can save the life of a human being if you donate to, for example, an anti-malaria charity. That's like really quite exciting because it's giving me the opportunity as someone of like normal means, not very rich, not...

Steven 
Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
very not politically powerful to still make a really positive impact on the world around me and for other beings. And that's like really cool. It gives you the ability to actually like make a difference, you know? And what you need to do that, yeah.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I can see it in you and I can hear it in your, I mean I can

just see and feel and hear your passion about it. That's beautiful, yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah. And

what you need to be able to do that is just like, need the information to know what are good charities that will use your money wisely, that will actually make an impact. And you need to know like how much to give and how to do it. And so FarmKind does that for people. So we say, we're like, if you know Wirecutter, the New York Times like product review service, we're like Wirecutter but for animal charities. So what we do is we work with experts to find really great charities.

that are doing a lot to help animals that are currently in factory farming. And then we promote them to people. say, look, if you want to help with this issue, if you'd like to be part of the solution, a very simple thing you can do that can have a really big impact is to donate to any of these six charities. We show you exactly how many animals you'll help. So we have these calculators that will show you your impact and all this kind of thing. We don't keep any of the money that people donate through us. And so you can just make this direct impact.

Steven 
it.

Thom Norman - FarmKind
for animals in a positive way.

Steven 
And I want to repeat what you just said, because I think that is an incredibly big deal and important to be restated. 100 % of the donations made through your site goes to the charity. I saw that on your website, which your website's wonderful, by the way. It's a really great website. That's so very impressive, because you hear about charities, if they are 90 %

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Thank you.

Steven 
of the donation goes to support the cause. That's a pretty good charity, a 10 % overhead or a 5 % overhead. And I get that, that people working at charities gotta pull a salary too and there's legal expenses and there's other things. I get that nonprofits need revenue, so I'm not against that they pull some of that out of the donation to run the business. Makes sense, but the fact that you're, I guess, grant funded, I read on your website.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
That's right, yeah.

Steven 
so that you're

in a place where all of the donations go to the charities. And that's just, I think, again, that needs to be magnified and shared a few times so people get that message that their contribution is going to the cause they're contributing to. So.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Absolutely. Yeah,

thank you.

Steven 
Where then the grant funding, where is that coming from? Is that from other philanthropic organizations or government grants? how are you then staying afloat yourself since all the money then is going somewhere else?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, yeah, that's

a good question. So yeah, we are funded by large philanthropic organizations and also by just some individuals who've got a little bit more money to give and want to support the work that we're doing. Essentially, we do is we come to them and say, look, we all can see everyone in the animal movement is talking about the fact that there's not enough money for all the amazing work that could be done. We are trying to solve that and help doing that. Would you like to support us to

to be able to do that work. And yes, we're lucky that organisations believe in us, believe in our approach and have given us funding to be able to do this and ensure that, as I say, when you donate through us, all your donation goes to those charities and to helping, directly to helping animals.

Steven 
Yeah, and it looks if I saw it correctly on your website, there's currently six charities that have been vetted through your process that that that your organization supports is Do you want to you know mention those or obviously want to drive traffic to your your website and and I guess I kind of a Secondary question. Are you reviewing other charities? Will that gliss grow from six to something else in the in the future?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah.

Yeah, so I'm very happy to talk about charities. I mean, our organisation exists to try to help people donate to them, so if you hear this and you go straight to their website and donate to them, that's fine with me. I don't mind. So... Yeah, exactly, exactly. So our charities are... We have six of them. They work on both helping animals right now and protecting animals from unnecessary suffering today.

Steven 
Great, I appreciate that global perspective of what you're trying to Get the job done, get the good work done. Right, right.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
and also trying to build a future food system that is environmentally sustainable, that's good for people's health, and that will involve far less animal suffering. we have the Humane League, which I talked about before. They work on these cage-free campaigns. We have the Frish Welfare Initiative, which works with farm fish, particularly in India. The Shrimp Welfare Project, which is an interesting one. work to help shrimp, which are actually the most farmed animal in the world.

in terms of the numbers of animals and have like almost no protections for their welfare so it's a really important charity. bit weird for some people like you know like I can get behind pigs but maybe not the shrimp but like it's important stuff and exactly yeah yeah you can donate to if that's not for you absolutely and then we have also DVF it's just an organization that works on opening up

Steven 
Wow. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. You also have a menu of charities to choose from if that's not, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
government money to do things like helping farmers who want to transition out of animal agriculture and into more environmentally sustainable forms of agriculture, like certain types of plant farming to do that. The Good Food Institute, which works on nurturing the alternative protein market. So this is like plant-based proteins, but also things like cultivated meat where you can like, and things like this, which are massively environmentally better and also involve no animal suffering at all.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
And then finally, Synergia Animal, who they do lots of these corporate campaigns, but specifically in parts of the world like Southeast Asia, where almost no work is being done to protect animals. The farming is growing at the fastest rate and hardly any funding is going there. So they're really, really important because farmed animals are the most neglected animals in terms of our help. And these are like the most neglected of those animals. So the most...

Steven 
neglected of the yeah

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, the most neglected of the most neglected. So really, really

Steven 
yeah yeah

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
important work that they do. And they've helped over the last year or so, five million pigs to be freed up from intense confinement and unnecessary suffering by not using anesthetics and things like this. So they're doing some amazing work.

Steven 
Well, yeah,

yeah. And most of those six, if I understand it correctly, also, as you touched on, are also not not just about animal welfare, but sustainable practices in general. how can, you know, some of the, you know, climate.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Absolutely.

Steven 
issues be addressed, you lowering our, you know, our impact on how we are impacting the world with regards to our own footprint. So tell me a little bit about how those are intertwined, both the doing things healthier for and.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah.

Steven 
to minimize suffering for the animals, also pushing these sustainable practices that are better for the planet overall, not just the animal, but for all of us.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah,

yeah, I think that's a really good point. we often, people say, factory farming, might be like bad, but it's necessary because we need to feed ourselves. And like, how else would we do it? The problem is that it's actually like really, really inefficient. So how it works is we, you have to feed these animals on something, right? And you have to feed them in order to grow them as quickly as possible because that's economically better.

you have to feed them on very high protein diets. So what we typically do is we farm a lot of land for crops like corn and soy, and that involves a lot of deforestation. And then we take that corn and soy and feed it to the farmed animals in these big giant barns where they, know, outside, not outside, excuse me. And what this does is it takes like a lot of calories and a lot of protein.

Steven 
Mm-hmm.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
and turns it into quite a small amount. there are some big studies looking at this kind of transition of energy from like into animal products. And it found that we waste about 33 % of the calories that we produce by feeding them through this animal agriculture process. And when it comes to protein, we only produce about 17 % of the protein that we eat from animals. And yet...

About 80 % of total land use for agriculture is in some way involved in the animal process. So this is a massively wasteful way to produce food. And what that means is we're using more land, we're using more water, and we're producing far more carbon emissions than we would do if we had some alternative way of producing enough food for everybody.

Steven 
Right. Right.

You know, not only are the carbon production, but the clearing of forests, you know, have the carbons getting hit on both ends. We're, you know, pulling the trees that are helpful for carbon reduction and producing more carbon along the way and adding into that the other, you know, methane gas, for example, from farmed cattle and

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, exactly.

Steven 
one of the prime greenhouse gas producers is coming from cattle. I know there's some other fascinating work being done about how can we feed cattle seaweed or other enzymes or other things that can help.

help make them a little less gassy. So, yeah, so I really appreciate the holistic approach that you're taking to this. And I know that kind of hits the three pillars of your organization. You're guiding people, I believe, to make better choices or where to support folks who are fighting these causes and the holistic approach that you're taking to look at sustainability. then, you know, that last piece that we already talked about doing so.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, yeah.

Steven 
in really financial efficient way. So I really appreciate the thoughtfulness that you and your co-founder and that was Aidan Alexander. Am I saying that correctly? I to give Aidan some kudos as well. So the two of you really have put together a very thoughtful approach to this and I appreciate that. So tell me a bit.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah.

That's right, yeah, that's his name.

Thank you.

Steven 
before we kind of transition in the interview here, I want to be respectful of your time. But you have this compassion calculator on your website, which I've used, I've played around with it to kind of see what my impact is on the world. Because I really appreciate your perspective here. You're not asking people to like...

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Nice.

Steven 
become vegans or, you know, like give up your cultural, you know, heritage with regards to food and you're just asking people and providing them tools to become more aware in having better choices. So I think that Compassion Calculator is one of those really great tools you have on your website. So what is that and how can people use it?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah,

yeah, so this tool, the Compassion Calculator, is designed specifically for people who feel empathy for animals and feel compassion for animals. They don't like the way that animals are treated in factory farms. They know that it's wrong, which I think is most people. I think there's like, 75 % of Americans believe that the way that animals are treated in factory farms is bad.

Like the majority of people know this and believe this. The problem is, as we've spoke about a couple of times in this conversation, often what animal charities or animal organizations or activists are telling people is, you need to stop eating animals entirely. And like that's what you should do about this. And what we say is like, that can be a good thing to do, but it's not the only thing you can do to help. it doesn't have to, you don't have to express.

your values and your empathy for animals in that way to be really effective and to make a difference for animals. A different way you can do it that can be actually just as effective if not more effective can be donating to organizations that are making a big difference in the lives of animals right now. And what our calculator does is it kind of gives you an interesting way to think about this, which is basically it's like imagine it like a carbon offsetter but for your diet, right? So you can use the sliders to say, this is in a week.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
This is like roughly what I eat in terms of, you know, like beef and pork and eggs and milk and all this sort of stuff. And we'll tell you using our charities and the data we have, because they're very transparent, we know exactly like in expectation how many animals that your dollar will help. And so we can show you, okay, given what you're eating, if you want to do as much good for animals, prevent as much suffering through donating as you could expect to do if you sort of went completely 100 % plant based, this is how much you would need to donate.

surprisingly small amount of money so for the average yeah

Steven 
It really is.

I was surprised. That is a great way to describe it. I was playing with it and I was like, huh, that's it. So didn't mean to interrupt, but I was like, yeah, that is, I wanted to emphasize that point. So go on, please. Sorry for my interruption.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah.

Yeah.

and the, as I said, the animal suffering. The environmental impact is like crazily easy to offset. actually one dollar offsets a person's food miles, so the carbon produced in moving your food to where you are, for an entire year based on the aspects, the impact estimates of the charities that we work with. So that bit is like very, very easy. And then some of the rest of your $23 is all going to...

to helping animals. And so yeah, we think this is like a fun way to kind of think about this issue differently and also make a really big impact. We had a guy recently who donated $10,000 because he said, I'm going to do it all in one go for the rest of my life. So he worked out how long he thought he was going to live for from now until and how many animals he was going to eat. It was like, I think I need to offset 10 grand. So that's what he did in one go. So you could do it that way or you could do it like.

Steven 
Yeah.

you

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Most people I think probably would try and do it like on every month or something like this. Yeah. Yeah, he's done.

Steven 
on a monthly basis, yeah. But he's free and clear for the remainder of his life. He's guilt free. I can have that

extra hamburger if I want. I think it's a brilliant tool.

and there's a little, you know, button that you can push to add a little bit of, additional dollars for the carbon offset. If you wanted to kind of, again, wrap it all into a sustainable package of, of animal welfare, as well as the carbon offsets. And it's really, again, wealth well thought through really brilliant way that you guys have developed this, and it may get easy for folks, right? Cause that's one of the barriers for people.

who may want to do something positive for the world. have this idea that I could do something different or better. And we have all of these mental barriers in the way that that's too hard. I just, don't know what to do. I can't figure that out. And you guys have taken a whole lot of those barriers and removed them. You just go and you've done all the hard work for folks. So I think that's really wonderful.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I think often, I think this is actually one of the consistent things that we hear and people hear is like when it comes to factory farming, it feels really big and it feels like this whole huge issue and people think, oh, there's nothing I can really do about this. know, like I've got to, you know, I've got so many things going wrong in the world. Like what am I supposed to do? And I think a big part of our message is actually like there are concrete specific meaningful things that we can do relatively easily and then do make a genuine difference.

And so you don't have to feel powerless. You don't have to feel like this is completely out of your control because actually it's not. You can help. We try and give people the tools so that they can feel empowered and feel that they can make a difference. yeah, I think people just need like, they don't have time to do all the research themselves, so we give them that so that they can choose whether they want to take advantage of that.

Steven 
Right, yeah, I think you hit on a good great point there though that the idea that the problems are so big it's overwhelming. I can't do anything when the reality is quite the opposite that your small actions like no nobody has to fully change their entire way of living. You know, it's not an either or proposition either. I have to come.

completely give up Mead and I have to completely give up all of these things that I know are bad for the future or not because it's just too big. And you're proving the point that no, everybody's small actions can then compound together to make a large positive impact. So those little things that we do.

matter. Those little things matter. They add up. really kudos to you for hitting on that. And are you still practicing law or is this your life now? This is your current life now. You may pivot again some of the time, so yeah, are you kind of doing two things at once here or you just you're all in on on farm kind right now?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah

hehe

Yeah, yeah, I'm full, kind is my full-time work these days, which is, I'm very lucky to be able to do that. I am one of these weird lawyers who really actually quite likes law. So maybe one day I'll go back and do that, but for now, this is what I'm doing.

Steven 
Wonderful. Yeah.

Perfect. Well, Thom, what can people do to support you and FarmKind? What's your call to action for folks now that they've heard this story and they realize, I can do little things and that makes a difference. It doesn't have to be so large and overwhelming. And so what do want people to do? What's your call to action?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, so I think the easiest thing, you can come and look at our website. So we are farmkind.giving, so www.farmkind.giving. On there you can find the compassion calculator if that sounds interesting to you and you like that approach. We also have information about all the charities we support and you can find out about them, can choose to donate to them and you can find out about the issue of factory farming. We try and make our website a positive and optimistic approach to an issue that often can feel very...

It can be a bit, it's sad, right? But we try and focus on the hope and the positives that can be done. We don't have lots of horrible images of animals in suffering. We try and focus on making this a comfortable space to talk about an issue that can sometimes be difficult to talk about. So yeah, I would encourage people to come and have a look and see what they think.

Steven 
Perfect. Well, I'll put on the show notes to the episode here, the link to your website and all your social media platforms as well so folks can follow you and support you and go give. I'd encourage everybody to go check out your website. It really is a great website and it does have that.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Thank you.

Steven
upbeat feeling to you just described to a topic that can obviously be very uncomfortable and has a deep ugly side to it, right? I factory farming is pretty horrendous. I imagine if most of us ever visited a factory farm to see what we're eating, we might feel a little differently after that visit because it is pretty harsh, to say the least, type of industry. So thank you for what you're doing.

and encourage everybody to go to your website and support you and really support the charities that you're supporting because giving money to you is going to those charities.

Well, I end every episode talking about hope. We talk about hard things on the show and factory farming is a hard thing. So I want to leave every episode with this idea that the future can be better. And that's the whole point of the program. So I ask everybody three questions about hope and hope isn't this, you know, pink cloud, fluffy emotion, right? I people who study hope don't

even identify it as emotion. It's a state of mind. It's this idea that has three kind of pieces to it. You have a vision for a better future. You have an idea of the steps you need to take to get to that better future. And you feel like you have a sense of agency, like there's something you can do to get there. You might not get there. It might be difficult. You might stumble along the way and almost...

And you know my perspective you have to do it with others. You can't do these things alone But it's this idea of a vision for a better future a plan of action and a sense of agency So I want to ask you three questions about your hopes Thom and I would encourage you just just give me the answer don't think too hard about it. So Alright, so the first first question about hope for you Thom is what is your vision for a better future can be for you personally professionally or for the world what?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah sure

Steven 
What's your vision for a better future?

Thom Norman - FarmKind
Yeah, so I look forward to the day when we don't have any more factory farming. think this is like, I think it's very achievable, surprisingly achievable. And it would make such a difference, not only for animals, but for the environment and also our own health as well, because things like antibiotic resistant diseases and potential pandemics, all lots of these things come actually from animal agriculture. And so I think a world without factory farming would be better for humans.

be better for animals, be better for the planet and that's the thing that I'm hopeful for.

Steven 
Perfect. And you kind of already answered the second question, but I always want to ask it regardless because there's probably some other thoughts in there that you want to add to it. So why is that your vision for a better future?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, as I say, think it's not only desirable, but I think it's kind of necessary because it's such a big, factory farming is such a big contributor to things like the climate change and antibiotic disease resistance is like an interesting issue. It's expected to be the leading killer of humans by 2050 and we feed three quarters of current antibiotics to animals.

So these really big reasons why we have to deal with this problem. But this opportunity to have a different, as we see things like cultivated meat coming on, this real opportunity to reinvent our food system, to move forward to a better future food system that produces the food we need, but in a modern, sustainable, healthy, and environmentally safe way.

Steven 
Perfect. So last question, asking you to use your imagination here a little bit. Imagine that the future you just described is happening today. So we're living in that future where factory farming no longer exists and we still have ample access to food and it's a healthier, more sustainable world for us as individuals and for the animals on farms. How does that make you feel that that's the world we're living in today?

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Yeah, I think it is just I find when I think about this and when I think about being around people who care about this issue, there's this just this sense of calm that you get because often in the world, like actually, like when you start to think about it, can the issue, you can see it all around you, right? Because we're always like animal products are so much part of like kind of everything we do. And

If you're not careful, it can be a reminder constantly of this problem. when you take that away, there's this amazing, yeah, just feeling of calm, feeling of contentedness. It's like when I'm just like snuggling with one of my cats and you just feel like, is good. This is where I want to be. And I think that like, yeah, a world without this, like this animal suffering would be a bit like that, I think.

Steven 
Yeah, I love that description. A world without animal suffering would be like cuddling with one of your pets. That's that's beautiful. That's a beautiful way to end the show. So, Thom, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you so much for what you're doing to make the world a better place. And I really appreciate you reaching out and asking to share your story because I've learned a lot. I've gained a lot from this conversation. And I know the audience has undoubtedly gained a lot from this, too. So thank you so much for being here. Keep keep.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Thank you.

Steven 
doing the great work that you're doing and I'll let you leave with the last word. Is there anything else you want to add? Yeah.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Thank you, yeah.

This was really fun. I enjoyed myself quite a bit. Yeah, it was really nice to to you and to your listeners about an issue that I care a lot about, but I think a lot of people do as well, but don't always know how to engage with. And so, yeah, I hope people have felt a little bit empowered, a little bit more optimistic about this issue, and have, if they want to, a sense of what they could do to be part of the solution.

Steven 
Perfect. Well, cheers. I look forward to staying in touch with you and seeing how your journey goes to make the world a place. So I wish you all the best, Thom. Take care.

Thom Norman - FarmKind 
Thank you. Absolutely.

Awesome, thank you.

Thanks, bye.

Steven 
What a great conversation with Thom Norman. Today we explored the emotional complexities of food choices, the challenges of factory farming, and how farm kind is empowering people to make a real difference. Thom shared his personal journey from law to advocacy, offering insights on how even small actions can lead to significant change. We also heard about the compassion calculator, a tool that helps individuals see the real impact of their choices on animal welfare.

And one of the things I truly appreciated about Thom's message today is his acknowledgement that these conversations aren't easy. Food is personal. It's deeply tied to our cultures, our families, and our traditions. And discussing the suffering of animals in factory farms can also be incredibly uncomfortable. But by addressing that difficulty right from the start, Thom opened the door for more thoughtful and compassionate dialogue.

It's a brilliant approach that makes his advocacy all the more impactful. I also want to recognize that not everyone, myself included, may be able or willing to give up meat or dairy entirely. And that's okay. What Thom reminds us is that even small intentional steps can make a real difference. Supporting cruelty-free farming practices, choosing more sustainable food options, and donating to organizations like FarmKind are all ways we can contribute to the solution.

So I want to thank Thom for sharing his inspiring story and for his dedication to making the world a better place. Thom's passion and commitment are truly making a difference. And to you, I hope Thom's story has left you feeling inspired. Whether it's learning more about the impact of your own food choices, supporting local farms, or sharing today's episode to spark conversations in your own community, your actions matter. And if you enjoyed this conversation,

Please consider supporting Stories Sustain Us by sharing this episode with family and friends, liking and following the show, and leaving me a comment. Your support helps me to continue sharing these powerful stories, so thank you again for all your support. And be sure to join me for the next episode of Stories Sustain Us, releasing on April 22nd, where we'll hear from an incredible guest who's working to transform rural communities in Tanzania by empowering women.

Her inspiring work is driving educational success for children, strengthening communities, and creating sustainable economic independence for women. You're not going want to miss this episode, so catch it on April 22nd at storiessustainus.com, wherever you listen to podcasts, and on YouTube. Thank you so much for being here today. Keep making the world a better place. Until next time, I'm Steven Schauer. Please take care of yourself and each other. Take care.