Monthly Spotlight: Asia Farming Solutions
This month, we spoke with Castle Reynera, founder and executive director of Asia Farming Solutions, a nonprofit working to advance higher-welfare food systems across the Philippines, and one of ACE’s Movement Grants recipients.
The Philippines is home to nearly 9 million pigs, around 70% of them raised on smallholder farms, but the welfare conditions facing breeding sows in smallholder farms across the Philippines remain almost entirely undocumented and largely absent from policy conversations. Asia Farming Solutions is working to change this by doing the harder, slower work of building evidence, trust, and locally grounded pathways for change. In this conversation, Castle shares what fieldwork across Philippine farms has revealed, why the aftermath of African Swine Fever created an unexpected window for reform, and what it really takes to advance animal welfare in contexts shaped by financial constraints, disease risk, and structural inequality.
1. Could you introduce Asia Farming Solutions and the core problem your work is trying to solve?
Asia Farming Solutions is a nonstock nonprofit organization working to advance higher-welfare and more sustainable food systems across the Philippines and Asia. Our work focuses on reducing the suffering of farmed animals through research, farmer engagement, technical assistance, and systems-focused advocacy that is grounded in the realities of local agricultural systems.
Much of our current work focuses on smallholder swine farming systems in the Philippines, particularly the welfare conditions experienced by breeding sows housed in gestation crates and highly restrictive confinement systems. Through our recent scoping study, we documented widespread restrictions on sow mobility, prolonged confinement, limited behavioral expression, absence of enrichment, and observable stress-related behaviors among breeding sows.
At the same time, the study also revealed that these welfare conditions are deeply connected to broader structural issues. Farmers are operating within post-African Swine Fever realities marked by financial instability, disease risk, limited infrastructure, lack of technical support, and strong pressure to prioritize survival and biosecurity.
Because of this, our work is not simply about criticizing farming systems. It is about identifying practical and context-sensitive transition pathways that improve animal welfare while still recognizing the realities faced by smallholder farmers and rural communities.
2. What is the Build Back Better Campaign and how does it aim to reduce animal suffering?
The Build Back Better Campaign emerged from the recognition that the rebuilding of the Philippine swine sector after African Swine Fever (ASF) represents a critical opportunity to rethink how farming systems are designed moving forward.
Through our fieldwork and stakeholder engagement, we observed that ASF has fundamentally shaped farmer behavior and housing decisions. Many farmers now rely even more heavily on restrictive housing systems because confinement is perceived as a tool for disease risk management, easier monitoring, and protection against piglet mortality. The campaign therefore focuses on ensuring that recovery efforts do not simply reproduce systems of extreme confinement. Instead, it advocates for welfare-oriented recovery pathways that integrate animal welfare, biosecurity, farmer livelihoods, and long-term resilience together.
A central component of the campaign is exploring the potential of group housing systems for sows as a higher-welfare alternative to gestation crates and restrictive individual confinement. Through our scoping work, we examined how group housing may improve sow mobility, social interaction, and behavioral expression while also identifying the structural barriers that currently limit adoption among smallholder farmers in the Philippines.
Importantly, our findings suggest that immediate large-scale transition toward group housing systems may not yet be feasible for many farmers because of financial, spatial, and disease-related constraints. Because of this, the campaign emphasizes pragmatic and incremental approaches rather than imposing unrealistic models disconnected from local realities.
This includes exploring low-cost environmental improvements, retrofitted housing modifications, farmer learning systems, pilot demonstrations, and gradual transition pathways that can help reduce suffering while remaining technically and economically viable within smallholder conditions.
3. What are some of the biggest wins you’ve had so far?
One of the biggest wins for Asia Farming Solutions has been helping to create space and visibility for farmed animal welfare conversations in contexts where these discussions are still extremely limited.
Our recent scoping study on sow housing systems is among the few known efforts in the Philippines examining welfare conditions within smallholder pig farming systems through direct fieldwork, welfare observations, and farmer engagement. The study involved on-site visits, interviews, and stakeholder consultations across multiple provinces, generating baseline evidence that can support future welfare-oriented interventions and policy discussions.
In many ways, simply having a scoping study focused on sow housing systems in the Philippines is itself a significant intervention. Farmed animal welfare — particularly the welfare of breeding sows in confinement systems — remains largely invisible within mainstream agricultural discourse in the country. By documenting these realities through evidence-based and locally grounded research, the work helps surface issues that are often normalized, overlooked, or absent from policy and development conversations entirely.
Another important milestone has been our partnership with Sorsogon State University in developing a toolkit adapted specifically for smallholder contexts and piloting farm models that explore practical higher-welfare approaches. Much of the existing global guidance around sow housing and welfare transitions is designed for industrial systems and often does not translate easily to the realities of Philippine smallholders.
We also see it as a meaningful achievement that local governments, veterinarians, academic institutions, and farming communities are increasingly engaging with welfare discussions not simply as ethical questions, but as issues connected to resilience, livelihoods, and long-term sustainability. Our work intentionally approaches animal welfare through a One Health and systems perspective that recognizes the interconnectedness of animal wellbeing, human livelihoods, and environmental conditions.
4. What are the most significant challenges you currently face in advancing your mission?
One of the biggest challenges is that there is still very little institutional infrastructure for farmed animal welfare work in the Philippines, especially within smallholder systems.
Our fieldwork consistently shows that farmers are operating under overlapping pressures: rising feed costs, unstable markets, ASF-related risks, limited access to veterinary services, weak institutional support, and constrained capital. These realities heavily influence housing decisions and make transitions toward higher-welfare systems extremely difficult without external support mechanisms.
Bureaucratic and logistical challenges also affect the work. Conducting field visits across geographically dispersed and rural barangays requires coordination with local governments, veterinarians, and communities, while weather conditions, transportation limitations, and biosecurity restrictions often delay or limit access to farms.
Another challenge is visibility and recognition within existing animal advocacy spaces themselves. There are moments where established animal welfare organizations, networks, and convenings are already happening, yet our work and organization are not always included within these spaces despite the scale and seriousness of the work we are doing on farmed animal welfare and food systems transformation.
As a result, much of our work has involved independently carving our path and building ecosystems of collaboration. This includes creating original research initiatives, establishing partnerships with universities and local governments, engaging directly with farming communities, and developing localized frameworks for higher-welfare transitions in contexts where these conversations are still emerging.
In many ways, the challenge is not only implementing practical solutions for animals, but also expanding who gets recognized as part of the animal advocacy movement itself — particularly youth-led, systems-focused, and Global South organizations working outside traditional advocacy pathways.
5. If you had to share a final message with the ACE audience, what would it be?
Animal welfare work in the Global South requires approaches that are deeply grounded in context and complexity.
In countries like the Philippines, discussions around farmed animals cannot be separated from questions of livelihoods, public health, food security, climate vulnerability, and structural inequality. Our work has shown that welfare outcomes are often shaped not only by individual decisions, but by broader systems that constrain both farmers and animals simultaneously.
This is why we believe meaningful change requires long-term engagement, humility, and practical transition pathways rather than one-size-fits-all solutions. The goal is not simply to replicate advocacy models from elsewhere, but to build locally grounded approaches that reduce suffering while remaining socially, culturally, and economically viable for the communities involved.
I also hope the broader movement continues expanding its understanding of who gets recognized within animal advocacy spaces. Across the Global South, there are emerging youth-led and grassroots organizations doing serious work on farmed animal welfare, food systems transformation, and institutional change — often with limited visibility, infrastructure, or support. Yet these groups are frequently closest to the realities they are trying to transform.
For us, building a more compassionate food system is not only about changing individual behavior. It is about building entirely new systems, relationships, and infrastructures that make higher-welfare and more just futures materially possible.
Disclaimer/Note:
The responses in this spotlight were provided by Asia Farming Solutions and reflect the organisation’s own account of their work.
ACE is dedicated to creating a world where all animals can thrive, regardless of their species. We take the guesswork out of supporting animal advocacy by directing funds toward the most impactful charities and programs, based on evidence and research.
