Burning Questions Collection & Prioritization Program

Assembling a list of questions of most salience and urgency to advocacy groups, campaigners, and other issue experts.

Current (2026) Burning Questions

CORPORATE STRUCTURE & POWER (CORP)

CORP1	What are the most effective strategies to shift corporate practices in vertically integrated markets dominated by transnational corporations in LMICs toward more equitable, higher-welfare, and environmentally sustainable models?Ranked as the #1 priority question.
CORP2	To what extent is direct government intervention, such as blocking the market entry of transnational agribusiness companies into LMICs, more effective at protecting local economies than regulating these firms after they have entered the market?
CORP3	How do corporate "sustainability" and carbon offset initiatives (e.g. biogas credits) linked to industrial farms affect local communities in LMICs? Do these schemes effectively mitigate environmental harm, or do they displace and conceal it?

ECONOMICS & LIVELIHOODS (ECON)

ECON1	How does corporate consolidation in the animal feed and processing sectors shape the contractual models (such as outgrower schemes or contract farming) through which smallholders are integrated into supply chains? Does this lead to genuine economic autonomy or eventual marginalization and displacement?Ranked as one of the top five priority questions.
ECON2	What is the accurate market share of meat, dairy, and seafood produced by industrial systems versus traditional/non-industrial systems in LMICs? Is the food security contribution of traditional systems systematically underestimated in official data?
ECON3	How can development policies in LMICs, which have historically favored large-scale and industrial livestock systems, be reoriented to support people who depend on livestock for their livelihoods while also meeting climate goals, such as reducing methane emissions, without increasing inequality within communities?
ECON4	How do food safety and biosecurity narratives shape government regulatory reforms in LMICs? How do these reforms disproportionately disadvantage traditional markets and smallholders relative to industrial supply chains?
ECON5	What evidence exists regarding the economic viability of "higher animal welfare" farming systems in LMICs? Do strict animal welfare regulations (e.g. cage bans) inadvertently favor large-scale industrial producers over smaller, resource-poor farmers?

GLOBAL FINANCE, TRADE & INSTITUTIONS (FIN)

FIN1	What is the total volume of funding from multilateral development banks and international donors for industrial animal agriculture in LMICs, and are these investments (including Scope 3 emissions) aligned with Paris Agreement commitments? Are there documented social or environmental impacts that can be used to challenge future funding?Ranked as one of the top five priority questions.
FIN2	How do global trade regimes and export-oriented economic policies (e.g. EU Free Trade Agreements) drive the expansion of industrial animal agriculture in LMICs? Can global trade mechanisms be leveraged to enforce higher animal welfare standards and support more equitable and sustainable production systems, without displacing smallholders in LMICs?

PRODUCTION SYSTEMS & IMPACT (PROD)

PROD1	What is the comparative impact of industrial vs. traditional farming systems on disease prevalence and "One Health" outcomes in LMICs? How can the "One Health" approach (including animal health and welfare) be legitimized in government agencies and development organizations to influence industrial animal agriculture practices?
PROD2	Beyond individual farm metrics, what are the cumulative socio-environmental impacts of industrial farms located close together on local air quality, water resources, and community health in LMICs?
PROD3	How does the introduction of high-productivity commercial breeds (that require controlled environments) versus indigenous breeds impact animal welfare, smallholder economic resilience, and input requirements (feed, water, energy, etc.) in LMICs?

CONSUMPTION & CULTURE (CON)

CON1	Which food distribution channels (e.g. street food, wet markets, supermarkets) are the most effective entry points for promoting plant-rich diets and alternative proteins in LMICs?Ranked as one of the top five priority questions.
CON2	To what extent does increased industrial production of animal-sourced foods in LMICs actively drive consumption of these foods (supply-induced demand), or does it merely respond to existing demand?
CON3	What structural factors (including government policy and subsidies) drive the artificially low price of industrial meat in LMICs, and how do these price points act as barriers to the adoption of alternative proteins or plant-rich diets? Can strategies such as innovation in indigenous crops be leveraged to create a successful economic development strategy that overcomes these price barriers in LMICs?
CON4	How do religious doctrines and cultural understandings of animal sentience in specific LMIC regions influence public attitudes toward industrial farming and meat consumption? How can these perspectives be leveraged in advocacy and policy engagement?

ADVOCACY & NARRATIVES (ADV)

ADV1	How can animal welfare, climate justice, labor, and public health movements in LMICs build effective cross-movement coalitions to challenge industrial animal agriculture?Ranked as one of the top five priority questions.
ADV2	What structural vulnerabilities (e.g. financing, energy, genetics) in industrial animal agriculture in LMICs create leverage points for advocacy? Which organizational strategies, narrative frames, and messengers will most effectively shift support from governments, institutions, and the public toward plant-rich and higher-welfare systems?

How does this program operate?

This program runs on a three-year cycle. The latest round was completed in early 2026.
Each cycle is a consultation process. The program invites issue experts (leaders of advocacy organizations, frontline campaigners, academics collaborating with these organizations) who are experienced and interested in addressing negative impacts of industrial animal agriculture in low- and middle-income countries to submit questions they consider of most urgency and salience to their current work. They then rank the set of submitted questions.
The target for each cycle is to have 15-20 participants.
The questions are then sorted according to their given priorities, and grouped into broad subject categories.

How are the "burning questions" used?

The “burning questions” collected in this program inform the kind of work to be supported and funded by the initiative, in particular its flagship Fellowship program.
Tiny Beam Fund encourages anyone interested in issues concerning the negative impacts of industrial food animal production globally (funders, students, etc.) to use the list in their own work.

Why collect "burning questions"?

Actual questions asked by actual persons render what needs to be “understood” and “deepened” tangible:

Tiny Beam Fund's mission is to deepen the understanding of issues and impacts. Deepening someone’s understanding – a worthy goal though it is – sounds vague and nebulous. Bringing things down to earth and making them tangible is a must. As we are talking about deepening the understanding of particular groups of real persons - leaders of advocacy organizations, frontline campaigners, academics collaborating with these organizations - why not ask these persons what are the important things they would like to understand more deeply? Why not ask them to write down their burning questions?
A list of questions is an actual list that one can hold in one’s hands to guide one’s work. One can also use the questions to focus attention on particular kinds of data to collect and research to undertake.

Asking important questions is a tried and proven technique:

Whether in the scientific or social sphere, those who have achieved remarkable breakthroughs and come up with effective, lasting solutions often have a set of core questions as the bedrock on which their endeavors are based.
For example, “Always ask important questions and answer them reliably” is a motto familiar to those who conduct randomized trials/ RCTs because that has served as the guiding principle for the medical science experts who pioneered this method.

Questions invite discussions and exploration:

A person asking a question is saying, “I don’t have (all) the answers; please tell me more”.
Persons pay more attention to and engage more thoughtfully with things that they recognize as responses to questions they themselves have asked.

Inviting a range of different issue experts to share their questions is more “participatory” than having a few individuals decide what the focus areas should be.

Why not come up with questions and priorities ourselves? Why take all the trouble of approaching a range of issue experts?
Tiny Beam Fund does not engage in any practical work itself. And workable, enduring solutions are more likely to be found by considering multiple perspectives and using a multi-disciplinary systems approach rather than each group working in silos.