*Originally published 25 February 2020* *Updated 15 November 2021* Mainstream media would have us believe that supporters of a plant-based food system and animal farmers are enemies. These two groups of people are often pitted against one another on opposite sides of the climate crisis, although, contrary to this belief, The Vegan Society states: “It is the system that is at fault, not individual farmers, who are just trying to make a living like everyone else”. Introducing the Grow Green campaign in 2015, The Vegan Society supports and collaborates with farmers and advocates for policies that will help them transition to a more sustainable system. Similarly, Animal Rebellion promotes a ‘no blame, no shame’ culture and campaigns for system change[…]
The Rebellion Has Brought the Climate Crisis to the Forefront… Now It Is Time to Address Speciesism
So far Extinction Rebellion and Animal Rebellion have had so much to celebrate. They have achieved great things. Before Extinction Rebellion, the existential threat climate change poses wasn’t widely discussed in popular culture or taken seriously. In the space of a few months XR changed the tone of that conversation forever. This is a massive shift and a great achievement that we can take pride in. We can also celebrate its effectiveness Talk must produce results, and as I write this there is an election coming and climate change is now an election issue even for mainstream parties. Also, the UK government plans a citizens’ assembly to look at the climate emergency (albeit watered down from what has been demanded). This is a result![…]
Supertrawlers: The Boats You Didn’t Know Are Ruining Our Seas
*Originally published 4 December 2019* Have you heard of super trawlers before? Super trawlers are massive fishing boats that haphazardly capture, freeze and store thousands of tonnes of fish and other sea life. They are notorious for wiping out fish stocks and contributing to large scale extermination of dolphins, seahorses, whales, and turtles. But their damage doesn’t stop there. Most UK fishing rights are currently in the hands of a few elite. FIVE families, all of whom can be found in the Times Rich List own super trawlers and control 29% of the UK’s fishing quota. Unsurprisingly, over half of the 25 top profiting fishing businesses were involved in evading designated quotas during the Black Fish Scandal, worth over £63m. Supertrawler Margiris[…]
Intensive Animal Farming Operations Are Rapidly Expanding around the UK and DEFRA’s Farm Subsidies Are Largely to Blame
*Originally published 30 November 2019* How is it possible that while there is increasing scientific knowledge and public concern about the catastrophic impact of factory farming on the earth, animals, and human beings, DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) is not reducing, as it should be, but is in fact increasing subsidies for factory farms? A joint investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigation discovered that factory farm operators were granted approximately £70 million of public money between in 2016 and 2017. The types of operations that received subsidies include: “Feedlot-style beef units, rearing thousands of cattle in outdoor yards; so-called megadairies, with herds of up to 1,800 cows; Intensive egg producers using cage housing systems; poultry megafarms and pig units which[…]
Are We All Being Milked?
*Originally published 28 November 2019* At a ‘Women in Dairy’ conference earlier this year, Dr Jude Capper, an ‘independent livestock sustainability consultant’ who also runs the ‘Februdairy’ campaign which attempts to promote animal milk, showed a slide during her presentation which featured two young children drinking what appears to be cows’ milk products. The message on the slide read, ‘Our biggest challenge is to keep dairy in the diets of future food purchasers’. This targeting of children by the dairy industry is not new, even if, evolutionarily speaking, drinking the bodily secretions of another species is. Set against the 300,000 year history of our species, drinking milk is a relatively new habit. Before about 10,000 years ago, hardly anybody drank milk,[…]
Incentivising Plant-Based Businesses: A Necessary Step Towards a Just and Sustainable Future
*Originally published 16 November 2019* *Updated 15 November 2021* As part of Animal Rebellion’s response to DEFRA’s National Food Strategy, Animal Rebellion has made ten core suggestions. The first is to incentivise a just and sustainable plant-based business model. In their (invited) consultation with DEFRA, Animal Rebellion points out that vegans and vegetarians are expected to make up a quarter of the population by 2025. They note that in response to the increasing demand for ethical plant-based alternatives to meat, fish, dairy, and other animal products, plant-based businesses have been on the rise. The popularity of Beyond Meat products (such as the Beyond Burger, made from pea protein, coconut oil, potato starch, and beetroot juice) and other plant-based alternatives to animal products is[…]
What Anti-speciesist Rewilding Looks Like — and How to Get There
*Originally published 10 September 2019* Okay, imagine it is year X, when animal products are almost universally seen as unnecessary, unhealthy and a product of a particularly cruel period in our relationship with the planet and its other inhabitants. This is the year when most people shudder in disgust at what only recently was accepted as the norm. The food production system is being completely restructured, with fishers continuing their transition from killing marine animals to planting and harvesting kelp, while farmers are now producing plants for human consumption only. We no longer breed animals in their billions, we no longer subject them to a life of enslavement, and we no longer sentence them to death on the grounds that[…]
Cargill Family, A Historic Choice is upon You: Planetary Destruction or Climate, Animal and Human Justice?
*Originally published 25 October 2019* An open letter from Animal Rebellion to the ‘silent giant’ that holds the fate of many of the world’s forests, billions of worlds’ farmed animals and much of the global food-system in its grip. Over 140 years Cargill, whilst remaining little-known, has grown to be one of the largest traders of commodities for the animal-agricultural industry. Your company is one of a handful that control up to 90% of the worlds grain markets. Your company is also the largest worldwide producer of the grain-based feed for farmed animals and the third-largest “meat processing” company in the world.Today, your agri-business is the largest food-conglomerate in the world. Astonishingly, all this makes your organisation directly accountable for: the life and death experiences of billions of commoditized[…]
Red Tractor: Assuring Animal Cruelty
*Originally published 19 October 2019* Rather than ensuring farm standards, Red Tractor fools the unaware consumer into supporting animal cruelty. ‘Facts are irrelevant. What matters is what the consumer believes’, said Seth Godin, American author and business executive. Animal agriculture and its representatives are well aware of this fact and consumers’ desire to be reassured that the products they purchase are ethical and of high quality. But how many are aware that labels, assurance schemes and terms such as ‘humane’ and ‘farm fresh’ mean very little for the 6.4 billion animals killed for food in the UK every single year? Animal Rebellion has been protesting at the headquarters of Red Tractor, a product certification programme that is made up of a[…]
Where Is the Compassion for Sentient Marine Animals in the Fishing Industry?
*Originally published 12 October 2019* As Animal Rebellion activists invite Billingsgate Fish Market into dialogue on the climate crisis and the plight of the the 2.3 trillion marine animals killed every year, we look at this often forgotten victims of our current food system. It’s easy to forget about fish or to dissociate ourselves from them and them from food, unlike cows, pigs, and sheep, which we see all around us in the landscape. When we order a salmon steak in a nice restaurant, collect a battered cod from the local chippy, or buy our favourite mackerel pate in the supermarket, we’re not usually thinking of these aquatic animals as sentient beings. It’s not often covered in the media that fish are[…]