Vegans would rather we farmers did not exist
Social media is a useful way to connect the public with its food but is being ruined by a rabid minority
The bank holiday weekend was the usual mayhem in our village, an obstacle course of walkers, cyclists and cars. Visitors were relishing the fine weather and the countryside: beautiful, green, ludicrously lush, as though making up for the harsh March and slow start to spring. While it is always good to see that others are interested in the rural way of life, secretly it is nice to go back to the usual sounds of birds and animals, interrupted by the occasional noise of an approaching tractor and trailer on the lanes around our farm. Quietness, interjected by harsh modernity, a bit like farming life.
How Britain’s militant vegans can hate all this so savagely, I don’t begin to understand.
There are many contradictions to life as a farmer. One is that, when we are not chewing on a piece of straw and absorbing the landscape, we engage with the world as it is now, making full use of social media. But present-day communications have a dark side. The National Farmers’ Union has released official guidance about being safe online, after reports of some farmers receiving threats for sharing images of their animals.
Life and death are always present in farming. If you farm well, the lives of your livestock are good and their deaths as easy as possible. There, I have said it, and by stating this fact I know I will incense a group of people who are not in the least interested in how our animals live. They are only interested in the fact, anathema to them, that they are farmed at all.
The environmental, ethical and economic realities of meat-eating versus veganism are beyond my complete understanding, but I do know one thing. That is that all food – whether animal or vegetable – at this time in our evolution has to be grown or produced, and that its production needs help. If that help is natural, it means the use of manure from livestock on our plants. Alternatively, it means the heavy use of chemical fertiliser and pesticides, which is probably not good for us and definitely not good for bees, birds and small mammals, such as field mice.
The farmer, though, is the visible face of a basic, more general fact, which too many seek to hide from: that we all need to eat to survive and all food production involves the death of some sentient beings. Most people we tell about our farm are supportive and very interested in the daily routine. Children, in particular, are fascinated by the milking parlour and enjoy climbing on the stationary tractor and pretending.
But there is a small, very vocal group, by no means all vegetarians or vegans, whose point of no compromise is that all livestock farming is exploitative and evil. Like all ideologies, this lends itself to extremism. Details, such as the role animals play in fertilising the land, don’t seem to matter.
If the independent farmer is an easy target, then the farmer who uses social media is an even easier one. Many young farmers, in particular, are enthusiastic about their job and take pride in clean beds of straw and successful lambing and calving stories. Ironically, they also tend to be the most responsible ones, with the most inspiring stories to tell. They are responding to a desire among the general public to know more about food production and the reality of farming, especially in times of recent challenge like the snow and storms of this March. We have never have had so many TV programmes about the countryside. Some are excellent, some more idealised. But they are popular, just like the trip out to the countryside at the bank holiday weekend.
When you share videos, images and stories online, therefore, the broad response is heart-warmingly positive. But I will guarantee you one thing – such stories will always bring a different response, too. Farmers who share stories and images online do so with an edge of wariness. A chilling minority will use the language of the zealot and sadly their impact is far greater than their numbers.
I think I understand the depth of the passion behind this. It is more difficult to understand how such a gentle approach to all life can be perceived with such fury.