How did FARM Founder and President Dr. Alex Hershaft celebrate his birthday this past Friday, July 1st? By distributing free vegan ice cream sandwiches to more than 200 folk dancers at the historic Glen Echo Park in Montgomery County MD! Alex is a regular dancer at these events, and for his birthday, he fulfilled his own wish by getting nearly every attendee to give a a tasty vegan treat a try.
On Sunday, June 26th, FARM staff and volunteers set up a Pay Per View station outside of the DC BBQ Battle. Dozens of event attendees, previously unaware of the conditions farmed animal face before becoming food, were moved by the harsh truth. Several people even promised to avoid meat at the event, despite the complete lack of animal-free options.
On Friday, June 24th, an International Day of Solidarity was held across the world to support the 12 activists in Spain being falsely charged with “eco-terrorism”, and FARM led the way in organizing US protests. The activists, dubbed the Spanish 12, work for legal animal rights nonprofits but are being branded as criminals and denied vegan meals in jail. More information on the case is available from Green is the New Red.
The Equal Justice Alliance (a FARM-led coalition of 100 animal and free-speech nonprofits working to fight animal activist repression) organized protests outside of the Spanish embassies and consulates in Washington DC, San Francisco, and New York City. A letter written by Alex Hershaft, founder of FARM and EJA, was addressed to the Spanish Ambassador and delivered by myself and Green is the New Red’s Will Potter. A similar letter was delivered in San Francisco by FARM’s Alex Felsinger and in New York by PETA’s Ashley Byrne. You can view the original letter here.
Join a coalition of activists supported by Equal Justice Alliance, Farm Animal Rights Movement and more for demonstrations at Spanish Embassies and Consulates for the international day of action in solidarity with the 12 animal activists in Spain, who have been recently arrested for conducting undercover investigations and open rescues. These arrests mirror the recent attacks on activists worldwide, including the cases of the recently acquitted activists in Austria and those in the US who are victims of designer legislation directed towards animal activists. Solidarity is more than just a word – join the public outcry against this severe injustice!
RSVP on Facebook for our demos in Washington DC, New York, or San Francisco!
More information on the case: http://www.animalequality.net/news/twelve-animal-rights-activists-arrested-spain
On Sunday, June 12th at DC’s Capital Pride Festival, Farm Animal Rights Movement staff and volunteers exposed festival attendees to the cruelties farmed animals face every day with our first trial of an all-day Pay-Per-View event. If you haven’t yet heard, Pay-Per-View is an innovative outreach idea initiated by Compassion for Animals and VegFund where we offer attendees $1.00 to watch a 4-minute video about the suffering of farmed animals.
Using four TV screens set up with two pairs of headphones each, we reached over 250 people throughout the day with a clip of the documentary Farm to Fridge! In addition to paying each attendee $1.00 tucked inside a Live Vegan brochure, we offered them each a chance to enter a raffle in exchange for taking an email survey on the event’s effectiveness.
Two FARM Activists unfurled an anti-egg banner at today’s Congressional hearing on the recent massive egg recall. The banner read “Recall All Egg Production.”
“DeCoster and his cohorts are a piece of the larger picture. This is not an isolated incident,” was yelled out as the hearing stopped. As the activists were being escorted out, they chanted “All Eggs Kill!” repeatedly. Each year, 230 million male chicks are ground up or suffocated at birth, while an equal number of females are slaughtered after wretched lives, crammed into tiny wire mesh cages that cut painfully into their feet and tear out their feathers.
The hearing, at the Rayburn House Office Building, was called by the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce to delve into the massive recent salmonella contamination and record recall of eggs produced by Austin “Jack” DeCoster’s Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms.
Two of the activists- myself (Michael Weber) and Jen Riley- were detained, along with FARM’s founder/president Alex Hershaft, who was handling media and video. All three were released without charge after it was determined that we left as soon as we were asked to. This action was done as part of the Dirty Secrets component of the World Farm Animals Day campaign. There was news coverage on CNN Health and Yahoo/AP News. See our Youtube video below.
The hearing included testimony from two survivors of the recent salmonella contamination about the severity of their sickness, including weeks of illness, multiple hospital stays, and serious medical procedures – including heart procedures. The next panel included Austin DeCoster, his son, Peter DeCoster, Orland Bethel of Hillandale Farms, and Duane Mangskau of Hillandale Farms. Orland Bethel invoked his 5th amendment rights and refused to answer any questions from the committee. Peter DeCoster answered the majority of questions, including many intended for his father. All of the egg producers expressed how “sorry” they were for the outbreak and Mangskau noted he was sorry for any “inconvenience.” The final person to appear before the committee was Joshua Sharfstein of the FDA who repeatedly stressed the need for food safety legislation to be passed, thus giving the FDA more inspection and enforcement powers. The FDA had never inspected DeCoster’s hen houses and Sharfstein pointed out – they do NOT do general inspections – only AFTER an outbreak has occurred.
View our Youtube video, and check out www.AnimalAgribusiness.com for more of animal agribusiness’s dirty secrets.
World Farm Animals Day is just two weeks away! We can’t wait to hear about the great events you all hold during the end of September and beginning of October! To make your event run smoothly, we want to make sure you receive materials by Friday, October 1st. In order for us to do that, it would be best if events are registered by Wednesday, September 22nd. 
We can still send out materials later than that, but we cannot ensure their arrival by October 2nd. Please register your events as soon as y0u can!
Can’t plan your own event? No worries! We have posted the events directory online, so attend the nearest event to you and support farmed animals around the world!
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has been confirmed as a speaker at the Animal Rights 2010 National Conference. He will be presenting on the morning of Friday, July 16th about activist repression and the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
Presenters aside from Dennis Kucinich include members of the Sea Shepherd crew and animal rights veterans such as Gene Baur of Farm Sanctuary, Nathan Runkle of Mercy for Animals, Lorri Houston of Animal Acres, and dozens more.
In addition to speakers, the conference includes premieres of the movies Bold Native and Skin Trade, networking receptions, free exhibits, vegan food, and much more! Check it out at www.arconference.org.
Over the last few years, report after report has surfaced, conclusively linking animal agriculture to global warming, air and water pollution, and land degradation. The most prominent of these reports, the UN FAO’s Livestock’s Long Shadow, famously credited 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions to animal agriculture, and blamed the sector for a myriad of other environmental troubles. The report stopped short, however, of actually recommending a change in diet, and instead called for improved agriculture practices.
A new United Nations report entitled Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production is the first of its stature to actually stress the necessity of moving away from meat and dairy. Specifically, the paper says that “impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth [and] increasing consumption of animal products [...] A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products.”
View the Executive Summary and the Findings and Conclusions (PDFs).
The report goes into detail about the consequences we can expect if business continues as usual. Increases in population and wealth have historically resulted in increased consumption of meat, dairy, and eggs, which they blame for the bulk of agriculture’s environmental impact. Agriculture is said to be responsible 70% of global freshwater consumption, 38% of the total land use and 19% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
It is now undeniable that we need to substantially reduce our use of animal products in order to prevent global catastrophe. The simplest way to do this is to adopt a vegan diet, which, in addition to avoiding all of animal agriculture’s ecological impacts, also spares the lives of dozens of animals each year- amounting to thousands over one’s lifetime. The American Dietetic Association calls a well planned vegan diet “healthful and nutritionally adequate […] for individuals during all stages of the lifecycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes” and adds that it “may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.”
Ready to consider the switch? Visit www.VegKit.org for a free Vegan Starter Guide!
Already vegan? Distribute our free handouts or share this page with friends & family!
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