Ilive in Yorkshire, where farming is a family business for many – passed down through generations, with increasing stress for this latest one. When something has its roots in your very identity, you’re never going to warm to people who pitch against you for who you are. I believe that vegans need to check in with our humanity as often as we do our sense of justice, and stop projecting our anger about what’s happening to animals onto farmers.
Early on in my veganism, I watched a speech by Philip Wollen and it resonated with me so strongly that, seven years later, I often find his words echoing in my head. (If you haven’t yet seen Animal sShould Be Off The Menu then you can watch it easily on YouTube.) Many of the lines in his speech had a profound effect on my thinking, but the one I’m thinking of today is when he speaks of a world where animals are no longer food: “Farming won’t end. It would boom. Only the product line would change.” Pretty simple isn’t it? But it made me realise that vegans need farmers just as much, if not more, than those who still eat meat. Farming is the hope for a new future for us all, and we need to be building bridges with farmers in order to knock down all of the world’s slaughterhouses. Regardless of how normal you regard eating meat to be, we all know that industrialised or factory farming is wrong. It has tipped the scales for this world and we are now hurtling towards what increasingly feels like armageddon. We need to make big changes and fast, and a big part of that will be people who choose to farm differently.