These vegans are peddlers of half-truths

WELL, the world as we know it has not yet come to an end. The ranks of Animal Rights Rebellion (ARR) stormtroopers have not yet marched into every farm to order the removal of all livestock, closed all the butchers’ shops and abattoirs, and released all farm livestock back into the wild from which, as everyone knows, it originated.

But while I believe the movement to be completely misguided in what it says and what it seeks to achieve, I admire it for picking up the baton from Dr Goebbels who observed that if you tell a big enough lie long enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.

False, distorted and based on flawed statistics and skewed facts the anti-meat lobby’s message may be but at least it is being delivered – and with precious little by way of resources available to do so.

But where is counsel for the defence? Where are the big guns from the world of farming when you need them? Who is forensically unpicking the prosecution’s case and demonstrating for the public’s benefit what a flimsy web of supposition and half-truths it actually is?

Farmers pay hefty subs to the NFU and the FUW. But when ARR announced on the BBC last week that it intended to rewrite all the school meals menus in Wales to banish meat on at least two days a week, where were they? Nowhere to be seen.

Instead the riposte had to be delivered by the Countryside Alliance, best known within these shores as a pro-hunting organisation. Mind you, their spokeswoman did a brilliant job of demolishing ARR’s rickety arguments.

The NFU should hire her because she outclasses anyone they’ve ever been able to put up to defend the interests of farmers.

Where, indeed, were the AHDB and Red Tractor, both farmer-funded, both, supposedly public promoters of the livestock industry? Nowhere in sight. Probably both too busy working on another moneywasting commercial patronisingly telling viewers in best Janet and John style how the Red Tractor scheme works, instead of getting out there and just promoting meat.

It’s not as though there wasn’t plenty of evidence lying around, either, for the construction of a case to demonstrate that rather than banning meat from the diet we should be encouraging its consumption.

Such as the scientific studies which reveal the all-round health benefits that flow from eating vitamin-rich grass-fed beef and lamb such as is produced so expertly and to such high-quality standards on the UK.

Such as the other scientific studies which reveal that restricting children to vegan diets can retard their physical development, stunt their growth and leave them fatally prone to osteoporosis by the time they reach their 40s. That such diets are, in other words, dangerous.

When are any of our farming organisations going to declare that they’ve had enough of being kicked, reviled and demonised by the antifarming, anti-meat lobby and start running their own campaigns dismissing the vegans as peddlers of half-truths based on highly selective statistics and prejudice – and banging the drum for meat?

Or are we looking at yet more examples of people who start out life as firebrands but who, once elevated to the higher echelons, go remarkably quiet and concentrate instead on keeping their noses clean so that the generous salaries and benefits continue to roll their way?

Where are the big guns from the world of farming when you need them?