Pathways to protecting farmed animals in Qatar
The current landscape of public views potential barriers and opportunities
Executive Summary
Industrial animal agriculture is associated with significant harms for both humans and non-human animals, including large-scale suffering for farmed animals, environmental degradation, public health risks, and worker exploitation. Understanding how the public relates to farmed animals and industrial animal agriculture is a key step toward identifying realistic and effective routes for change. This requires insight into people’s beliefs, motivations, and social and cultural norms around animal-based foods, as well as their views on potential pathways to change, such as dietary change, advocacy, policy reform, and emerging alternatives like cultivated meat.
While research on public attitudes toward animal agriculture is expanding globally, comparable, context-specific evidence remains limited in West Asia and North Africa (WANA/MENA), a region characterized by population growth, rising animal-based food demand, and distinct cultural and institutional contexts. This is a critical gap, as the lack of locally grounded data constrains the ability of advocates, policymakers, and researchers to design informed strategies and engage the public effectively. This study aims to help address this gap.
We developed and administered a survey, which was inspired by recent research (Hopwood et al., 2021) and adapted to the regional social and cultural context of the region. The survey was conducted across five countries: the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with samples in each country designed to broadly reflect the adult population in terms of key characteristics such as age, gender, and region of residence.
This report presents results for Qatar, describing public views related to farmed animals, animal-based foods, and different ways of reducing harm in the food system. Below, we present selected key findings and related recommendations for advocacy organizations. Additional findings and recommendations are presented in Section 8.
Key Findings and Recommendations
Key finding: Although most respondents currently consume predominantly animal-based diets, attitudes toward plant-based eating are generally positive. Many view plant-based diets as healthy and express interest in learning more about plant-based proteins or substituting them for animal protein.
Recommendation: Leverage favorable views toward plant-based eating to drive availability and uptake.
Advocacy organizations can benefit from building on existing openness to plant-based eating and using these consumer insights in their engagement with corporations, institutions, and food-service providers to encourage more plant-based options, improve their quality, and make them easier to find and choose.
Key finding: There is widespread and strong public support for laws and regulations that protect farmed animals and regulate their treatment.
Recommendation: Leverage strong public support for policy- and regulation-based protections for farmed animals.
Advocates may find it useful to emphasize that legal protections, such as minimum space requirements, access to food and water, and regular veterinary care, are supported by a clear majority of the public when engaging policymakers, regulators, and certification bodies. Complementing this approach with public education about where such protections are currently absent or insufficient can further build awareness and strengthen support for policy change.
Key finding: Animal protection organisations receive broad public support. While most supporters prefer low-effort forms of engagement, such as following or sharing content on social media, many are open to doing more, including actions like signing petitions, volunteering their time, or making donations.
Recommendation: Match outreach strategies to how supporters prefer to engage.
Advocacy organizations can benefit from aligning outreach strategies with how supporters prefer to engage. Providing multiple levels of engagement, from simple online actions to more active forms of participation, may help organisations reach and retain broader support.
Key finding: Strong attachment to meat, beliefs that eating meat is an unquestionable right, and speciesist views that prioritize human interests over those of animals emerge as key barriers to progress for farmed animals.
Recommendation: Address strong barriers that may hinder progress for farmed animals.
Advocacy organizations may find it valuable to invest in understanding how these barriers operate and in developing strategies that effectively address them. Because these beliefs are often difficult to shift, approaches that are evidence-informed, carefully tested, and sensitive to social and cultural context are likely to be particularly important for achieving meaningful progress.
Key finding: Those who recognize animals as sentient and are aware of the broader negative impacts of industrial animal agriculture tend to show greater openness to dietary change, along with stronger support for technological innovation, legal protections, and animal advocacy organizations.
Recommendation: Center messaging on animal sentience and the broader systemic impacts of animal agriculture.
Advocacy efforts may benefit from emphasizing farmed animals’ capacity to feel and experience emotions, while also communicating how industrial animal agriculture affects not only animals, but human health, communities, and the environment.
Key finding: Government institutions and certification bodies are most commonly seen as responsible for public education on farmed animal welfare and related legal protections, while religious and educational institutions are also viewed as having a role.
Recommendation: Communicate public expectations to institutional and religious actors.
Advocacy efforts may be strengthened by communicating these public expectations to institutional and religious actors, and by encouraging discussion of farmed animal protections and where they are currently lacking.
