Mercy For Animals' Nathan Runkle speaking at last year's conference

The excitement continues to build as we draw closer to the conference! Everyday more speakers are confirmed, inspiring sessions and workshops are added, and amazing exhibitors are included. We have incredible sponsors this year including Alley Cat Allies, In Defense of Animals, Mercy For Animals and International Primate Protection League. Join us this August to hear these silver sponsors as they lead riveting panel discussions and thought-provoking presentations.

Alley Cat Allies President, Becky Robinson, will lead a session on Reforming Our Shelters: A Life-Affirming Approach to Dealing with Homeless Animals. Robinson will discuss the benefits of trap-neuter-return (TNR) programs for feral cats as a way of keeping them out of the broken shelter system and managing their populations humanely.

You will also have several opportunities to hear Nathan Runkle, President of Mercy For Animals, including his workshop on Printing Our Message. During this session, Runkle will discuss how to effectively design printed material to have the biggest impact on your audience. He will cover choosing layout programs, fonts, colors, paper, graphics and provide tips on how to work closely with printers.

International Primate Protection League’s founder, Dr. Shirley McGreal, will discuss Animal Abuse for Science that will include videos and a Q&A session about animal abuse in education, testing and research. Based on her years of experience and hands-on work with thousands of primates, Dr. McGreal will share the details of how apes are captured, transported and traded for research.

You can also join Hope Bohanec, from In Defense of Animals, for a look at Companion Animal Campaign Reports. This session will look at campaign reports for humanely reducing companion animal populations and the abuse these animals suffer. Bohanec will also discuss IDA’s Guardian Campaign that promotes changing our language to reflect the growing public support for a redefined public standard of relating to animals. As more people consider using the updated term “animal guardian,” evidence of society’s deep personal relationship with dogs, cats and other animal companions comes to light.

A representative from all four of these incredible organizations will be featured at the opening plenary on Thursday night, so make sure to come early. To see more sessions and workshops planned for the conference, please check out our preliminary schedule. And be sure to sign up for our conference email alerts so you stay up-to-date on all conference news. Hope to see you there!

This Mother’s Day let’s not just focus our attention on our own mothers and other strong women in our lives, but let’s extend the celebration to ALL mothers…including those who are used in the food industry. Let us take a stand for the innocent mothers enslaved in the dairy and egg industries whose reproductive systems are exploited to provide unnecessary products and increased profit margins. Let us memorialize these mothers by educating those around us on the daily horrors these innocent beings endure and work together to end their suffering.

Like all mammals, cows must have babies in order to produce milk. In the dairy industry, cows are kept in a state of almost constant pregnancy, being re-impregnated via artificial insemination just two months after their calves are born. And for these mothers, giving birth is less than an enjoyable occasion. Their calves are taken from them almost immediately never to be seen again. Distressed mothers cry for days mourning the loss of their newborns, while calves are essentially orphaned by the system that produced them.

Female calves are enslaved in the dairy industry just like their mothers. They are genetically manipulated, artificially inseminated, and often drugged to force them to produce about four and a half times as much milk as they naturally would to feed their calves. Several times a day they are hooked up to milking machines, despite often painful inflammation of their udder. A cow’s natural lifespan is about 25 years, but cows used by the dairy industry are killed after only four or five years. At the slaughterhouse, they are turned into soups, animal companion food and low-grade hamburgers. Male calves are useless to the dairy industry so they are slaughtered at a few days old for “bob veal” or in a few months for “white veal.” Lucky ones might make it to a feed lot where they will be fattened for slaughter.

As for the egg industry, 70-80 billion eggs are produced by 280 million “laying hens” every year in the U.S. The majority of these mothers are housed in large sheds with no windows and poor ventilation. They live in tiny wire cages that are stacked on top of each other, with no room to turn around or spread their wings and with no bedding to create comfortable nests. At only a few days old, their beaks are cut off without using anesthesia and many die because it is too painful to eat; they become dehydrated and their immune systems are compromised.

These mothers never see the sun, breathe the fresh air or scratch in the dirt. Instead artificial light is constantly manipulated in order to maximize egg production. The air in the sheds is thick with the stench of ammonia and feces, and their feet and joints become infected and sore from standing on wire mesh. Periodically, for two weeks at a time, the hens are only fed reduced-calorie feed to induce an extra laying cycle.

Just like cows, hens will never truly experience motherhood. Female chicks will go on to replace laying hens in the egg industry, while male chicks are worthless. Every year over 200 million male chicks, only a few hours old, are tossed into trash bags to suffocate or thrown into high-speed grinders called “macerators” while still alive. The average life span of a chicken is 8-10 years, but after only two years in these wretched conditions, mother hens’ bodies are exhausted and emaciated, and their egg production drops. Ultimately, 200 million of these “spent” hens are shipped to slaughterhouses where they will be turned into soups, companion animal food and school lunches.

Countless studies have shown that both dairy and egg products are not necessary to maintaining a healthy diet. A well-balanced diet of fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds is safe and appropriate for all stages of life. And, there is evidence that children and adults who consume wholesome plant-based meals enjoy more energy and improved intellectual performance.

So this Mother’s Day, be sure to honor all mothers and the joys that are meant to accompany motherhood. Do what you can to help mothers enslaved in the food industry by making compassionate choices with every meal you eat and by sharing this knowledge with others. Together we can change the world for animals.

Over fifty supporters gathered outside Portland’s vegan mini mall on Saturday to see FARM’s 10 Billion Lives outreach vehicle depart on its North American tour! Acclaimed author Melanie Joy joined FARM’s grassroots coordinator, Alex Felsinger, in cutting the ribbon before handing the keys to the tour coordinator, Jeni Haines.

Vegan shops Food Fight! Grocery, Herbivore Clothing Company, Scapegoat Tattoo and Sweetpea Baking Company all generously contributed 10% of their sales for the day toward the tour — knowing that for every dollar donated, we’re able to reach another viewer! Portobello and Scapegoat Tattoo also contributed gift certificates and other prizes for the raffle.

Visitors were able to check out the touch screen monitors for a full viewer experience, though with the option to watch a more pleasant video than Farm to Fridge. The all-vegan BBQ cart Homegrown Smoker provided food and drinks to round out the afternoon.

With its amazing and ever-growing vegan community, Portland proved to be the ideal spot to launch this historic tour. Thank you to everyone for coming out and showing such great support!

This year’s theme for the Animal Rights National Conference focuses on returning to our roots…remembering and celebrating why each of us made the decision to become involved in the animal rights movement…why we chose to go vegan, to rescue animals, to protest and hold outreach events to educate the public.

This year we want to rekindle the spirit, the enthusiasm and the commitment that we felt when we first became involved with the animal rights movement and use this inspiration to keep our momentum moving forward.

That’s why we want to hear from YOU and what inspired YOU to get involved in the movement. We want to hear your story and what makes you the future of animal rights. Why are you the next champion for animals?

We invite all activists, who believe that non-human animals should have the right to live fee from human exploitation and abuse, to submit up to two 30-second videos explaining why you are “the future of animal rights.” Please format your statement as a video; however, if that’s not feasible, please submit your entry as text accompanied by a photograph. Be sure to include your name, postal address and phone number. Email your entries to anne@arconference.org by June 15th. You may enter even if you do not plan to register for the conference.

The top 20 entries will receive a conference T-shirt and the top five entrants will be invited to read their statements in person at the Conference’s closing ceremony on Sunday afternoon. Fifteen other entries will be complied into a video that will be screened at the same ceremony. All entries will be posted on the AR2012 website.

For more information about this great opportunity, please visit the AR2012 Conference website. And let your voice for animals be heard!

Raising animals for food contributes substantially to global warming and is responsible for more water pollution, topsoil depletion, deforestation and wildlife destruction than any other human activity. That’s why FARM encourages folks to green their diets to help protect the planet and conserve valuable resources.

Recycling, reusing items, reducing energy usage, carpooling and bicycling all help to protect the environment and reduce our footprint on the planet; however, numerous studies indicate that switching to a vegan diet can cut out 90% of the total emissions an individual’s eating habits contribute to global warming. So while these small steps can make a big difference in saving the planet, switching to a plant-based diet can make the biggest impact.

So in honor of Earth Day, which was Sunday April 22nd, FARM staff and volunteers from across the country celebrated Vegan Earth Day, by spreading the compassionate message at over 50 Earth Day events. These events included tabling, video screenings, vegan food sampling, guest presentations and leafleting with over 20,000 handouts distributed.

Vegan Earth Day billboards are also being displayed in the San Francisco and Boston areas, where commuters are encouraged to visit LiveVegan.org to explore a plant-based diet in celebration of Earth Day. If you see one of our billboards, snap a picture and share it on our Facebook page or Tweet it to us @FARMUSA.

There’s a Youtube video circulating within the animal rights community, where a “butcher” pranks unsuspecting grocery shoppers into thinking he is turning live baby pigs into sausage right before their eyes. At first the shoppers are enjoying free meat samples, but as soon as the butcher picks up a live baby pig, their tune quickly changes.

Once the piglets come into view, taste testers immediately spit out their meat samples in disgust. Some shoppers shout at the butcher in horror for what he is doing to the pigs and one woman even hits the man. Caught on camera, the shoppers’ priceless facial expressions show their true feelings about killing animals for food. Yet, I suspect most of these shoppers will continue to purchase and consume animal products, despite their honest reactions to the pig butcher.

In today’s society, there is such a disconnection between animals and the food people choose to put on their plates. People don’t think about their chicken sandwich as a once living bird or their grilled hamburger as being a cow. And when school children are asked where milk and eggs come from and they respond not by stating the animal who produces them but rather “the grocery store,” there is clearly a breakdown in the connection between living animals and the idea of food.

There also exists a large inconsistency in human behavior and attitude towards animals based on the species. Individuals can sit on the couch and pet their dog or cat while chowing down on a chicken, cow, pig or fish, never thinking twice about why they treat certain animals one way and others in another way. In some U.S. states, it is against the law to eat a dog or cat, but every year 10 billion cows, chickens and pigs are raised and slaughtered on farms for human consumption, in addition to billions more sea animals. So why the difference?

As discussed in a previous post, this invisible belief system that conditions humans to eat certain animals and allows humans to see eating animals as a given rather than a choice is what Dr. Melanie Joy refers to as “carnism.” Joy says, “When we eat meat we have to disconnect physiologically and emotionally from the truth of our experience. We have to numb ourselves from the reality that we are eating a dead animal. Carnism blocks our awareness and it blocks our empathy towards the animal we are eating.” She continues by saying, “Eating meat requires us to be mindless rather than mindful.”

And this is clearly the case with the video of the supposed pig butcher. Although this video is meant to be a funny spoof, when you step back and look at what is really happening, it is blatantly obvious that Joy’s definition of carnism is at work and this is no laughing matter.

At first, shoppers are very eager to taste test the meat samples because they are doing it mindlessly but as soon as the live pig comes into the picture and the shopper is now mindful of the experience, he or she suddenly makes the choice not to consume the meat product. Once the person makes the connection between the food and the animal, he or she experiences empathy for that animal and is no longer able to consume the food.

Killing animals for food is not a necessity; it is a choice. A well balanced diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes is crucial to proper health. These foods supply essential nutrients, fiber, antioxidants, and a variety of beneficial phytonutrients; which reduce the risk of heart disease, certain types of cancer, diabetes, stroke, osteoporosis, and other chronic diseases. It is vital for society to rediscover the connection between animals and diet not just for the animals but for improved human health and for the planet.

During the week of March 11-17^th, author and lecturer Dr. Melanie Joy presented her acclaimed slideshows throughout Europe on what she calls “carnism,” funded in part by FARM’s Sabina Fund. Carnism, as Dr. Joy explains it, “is the invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions people to eat certain animals. Most people view eating animals as a given, rather than a choice; but when eating animals isn’t a necessity for survival, as is the case in the majority of the world today, it is a choice – and choices always stem from beliefs.”

Throughout the week, over 750 people came out to hear her speak – but that’s just the in-person lectures. More impressive was the international media coverage, from an interview on Good Morning Croatia to an article in leading Austrian paper Der Standard with nearly 1,000 comments posted on it! Additional articles and interviews across Europe ensured that many thousands of people heard her compelling message.

Dr. Joy began her tour at the University of Vienna, where she spoke to a full house and presented her workshop for vegans on understanding the mentality of meat for effective vegan advocacy. While in Vienna she was interviewed for two radio shows and for her article in Der Standard.

She then spoke at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, where she presented her carnism slideshow to a largely meat-eating audience. There was three times the expected turnout of attendees, regional (and later national) press, and an extremely positive reception. The last part of her tour was Croatia. Melanie visited Zagreb (the capitol) and Osijek, a southern city. Her groundbreaking book, “Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows” had just been released in Croatian and her visit received national media attention.

She was featured live on primetime television, on Good Morning Croatia, attended two press conferences, gave a number of radio and print interviews, and presented both of her slideshows in the two cities. Again, her presentations were so fully attended that there was standing room only. The response of the Croatian audiences was also extremely positive.

For more information on Carnism, visit www.carnism.com and to learn about FARM’s Sabina Fund grants, visit www.SabinaFund.org.

This could be YOU! On tour with FARM!

Interested in saving animals and promoting a compassionate vegan diet? Like working as part of a team and enjoy traveling? Then we have a job for you!

FARM has added a full-time touring vehicle to the revolutionary Pay-Per-View program that pays viewers $1 to watch Mercy For Animals’ “Farm to Fridge,” and the vehicle will be hitting the road in early May to begin its cross-country tour. We’re looking to staff the vehicle with a group of committed, enthusiastic activists to join the FARM team as interns for this amazing project.

We will be making stops at college campuses, music festivals, and street fairs to achieve our ambitious goal of reaching 100,000 viewers in the vehicle’s first year.  While traveling in the FARM vehicle, interns will gain a unique experience that will spread the critical message of farmed animal suffering and the immense power of our choices.

The vehicle will be equipped with a bunk bed, a refrigerator, and a wi-fi internet connection.  Basic food will be provided for all meals. Internships can last as little as a week or up to 3 months!

This innovative form of outreach has already awakened thousands of hearts and minds to the horrendous suffering of animals used for food and the impact of a vegan diet. If this sounds like your calling, then don’t hesitate! Apply today!

We are currently accepting applications for internships through December 2012, including Warped Tour this summer. Click here to apply. We are eager to hear from you!

AR2012 is shaping up to be an exciting experience, with a fresh new program and added features!

This year’s speakers just announced: Matt Ball, Gene Baur, Michael Budkie, Jon Camp, Nick Cooney, Karen Davis, Debra Erenberg, Bruce Friedrich, Scotlund Haisley, Alex Hershaft, pattrice jones, Melanie Joy, Shirley McGreal, Erica Meier, Will Potter, Becky Robinson, Nathan Runkle, Michael Weber, and many more.

A preliminary program schedule has also been announced to give attendees a sense of what to expect from this year’s conference. Topics will include vivisection, animal abuse for food and fashion, companion animal reports, abuse of wildlife, understanding the meat mindset, how to develop leadership, interacting with friends and family and how to nurture activism. For a list of more topics and to view the schedule, please click here.

Message board forums have also been posted to help attendees coordinate lodging, travel, meetings and other important conference information. Use these message boards to find someone to share a ride or room with and to setup networking meetings. There is also a forum to post constructive discussion regarding the program and related items. Please use these message boards to your advantage to enhance your conference experience.

And thank you to all of this year’s sponsors who help make the event possible. Silver sponsors include Alley Cat Allies, In Defense of Animals, International Primate Protection League and Mercy for Animals. To view bronze sponsors please click here.

As a reminder, the deadline for the “Advance” rate is April 2nd, so register today and save $60! For more information please email info@arconference.org or call 1-888-FARM-USA (1-888-327-6872). Hope to see you there!

FARM staff and volunteers distributed 550 samples of Field Roast sausage at Portland State University.

In celebrating the Great American Meatout, countless groups and individuals around the world held events to educate their communities on the many benefits of a vegan diet. Groups held feed-ins, distributed free food samples, setup tabling events and handed out leaflets;  others coordinated parades, demonstrations and offered Pay-Per-View events.

On March 20^th, Animal Compassion in Action honored Meatout with a campus event at the University of New Mexico. Along with providing lots of informational brochures and vegetarian starter kits, the group served 400 vegan food samples and exposed 137 people to the horrors of animal agriculture by running a Pay-Per-View booth. Check out the group’s photos on their Facebook page.

And Animal Friends of Croatia invited citizens to show their culinary skills and hospitality, by treating themselves and their friends to delicious plant-based foods. The group held a huge tabling event in Trg Petra Preradovica complete with tasty veganized dishes like cobanac (a traditional stew), breaded steaks, skewers and Bolognese. Over 400 food samples were distributed!

The group also tried something a little different this year, by inviting citizens to cook their own vegan dishes to share with friends and family. Participants were encouraged to submit recipes and photos of their meals as part of a contest, and the response was more than expected. They received dozens of entries, with one coming the whole way from Serbia! To view their event and be tempted by their amazing food samples, you can check out photos on their Facebook page.

Thanks to everyone who made Meatout another wonderful success! Events will continue through the rest of the month, so please remember to check out our events page for details. And please stay tuned for the Meatout wrap-up report.