Vegan campaign group hits back at QMS claims

Go-vegan Scotland, a prominent campaigning group, yesterday said that it was keen to speak with Scotland’s farming industry with a view to helping it move away from the country’s current focus on animal production.

The group’s spokeswoman and co-founder, Barbara Bolton, said: “Vegans want to support farmers to transition away from using other animals, and we want our government to put in place policies that promote this.”

Ms Bolton added that the time for starting a mature dialogue had arrived.

“The meat, dairy and egg industries, with their profit interest in continuing with the status quo, should not be involved in deciding policy on land use, health, the environment or anything else. These are matters that should be dictated by what is right, just and fair for everyone on the planet and for the environment upon which we all depend.”

Responding to Quality Meat Scotland’s recent assertions that consumers were considering reducing their meat intake on the basis of inaccurate information about the production methods used in Scotland she added: “It should be no surprise when the meat industry and their paid spokespeople try to tell us to consume more of the products they sell.

“We should always keep in mind that their interest is in profit, not in our health, not in the environment and not in the rights of other animals.”

Stating that the single most important thing any individual could do was to stop consuming animal products, Bolton said that humans could get all the nutrients they required from plant-based foods.

She also claimed the land use and climate change points raised regarding Scotland by QMS were myths.

She said: “It is important that people know that we could reforest all of the land currently used for grazing, plus the land used to grow crops that are fed to animals, and still grow enough food to feed everyone.”

She said that 49 per cent of Scotland’s cropland was currently used to grow food for animals, not humans, a fact which she said was highlighted in a report published recently by Harvard Law School.

“Scotland doesn’t exist in a bubble. Climate change and environmental destruction are global phenomena,” said Bolton. “We have to do everything we can to tackle them.”