The Best We Have To Offer? | Inside Ireland’s “Humane” Farming

I want you to imagine that one morning you
wake up and as you stretch in bed, your fingers

graze your oak headboard and suddenly, before
your eyes, you see the tiniest acorn fall

to the ground, sink into the earth, shoot
up into a great oak, get cut down by industrial

machinery, chopped into pieces, manufactured
into a headboard, packaged, shipped, displayed,

and purchased by you.

This all happens in the span of a few seconds.

You start thinking maybe you aren’t quite
awake it was just a particularly vivid dream.

But when you throw back your sheets, you’re
regaled with their entire journey from cotton

seedlings in a field all the way to adorning
your mattress.

By this point you’re understandably afraid
to move, so you yell for a loved one, instinctually

reaching out to them as they rush in.

And it happens again.

Only this time you’re not watching their
history, you’re seeing it through their

eyes.

Every moment in their life as they saw it,
every experience as they experienced it—all

in the blink of an eye.

It’s all so much at once you find yourself
unable to explain to them what’s happening—at

least not without sounding insane.

So you laugh it off—must have been a bad
dream—and thank them when they offer to

make breakfast.

Maybe getting something in your stomach will
settle things down.

You keep your socks on as you make your way
to the table to save yourself the life story

of your floors and carpets, and pull back
your chair with your foot before carefully

sitting down.

You decide to just use a single fork for everything
that you’re going to eat so that you don’t

have to learn more than you care to know about
utensil production.

Your plate is set before you and your loved
one or family member or roommate joins you.

You smile and thank them and say you must
have just been hungry.

And then you make the mistake of taking a
bite of bacon.

And it happens again.

What do you think you would see?

What would you hear?

Smell?

Feel?

What would it be like seeing through the eyes
of that pig?

Just imagine the full scope of this—every
item you pick up at the store, every piece

of clothing you put on, every person whose
hand you shake or hug.

How would your understanding of the world
and those around you change?

And how would it affect your food choices?

Hello, my name is Emily Moran Barwick.

I’m an animal liberation activist, an artist,
an educator and a vegan.

I created the YouTube channel and accompanying
website, Bite Size Vegan, where I educate

people about veganism through a wide array
of video styles covering a diverse range of

subjects.

In our time together today, I’m very likely
going to challenge some of your life-long

beliefs.

I’m going to ask you to set aside your preconceptions,
suspend any certainties, and try to see with

a fresh set of eyes that which you’ve never
questioned.

The everyday, ordinary, accepted aspects of
your daily life.

I am aware that this is a great deal to ask
of you, especially coming from a total stranger.

I’m asking for your trust when I haven’t
even earned it.

But believe it or not, I am not here to force
my beliefs upon you—to criticize your country,

culture, traditions, religions, or beliefs.

I’m not here to shame or shock you.

I’m not even here to make you vegan.

I won’t pretend to have that power.

And no one really makes any lasting change
through force anyway.

Today, I’m simply here to show you what
is really going on every second of every day

all around the world behind closed doors—including
here, in Ireland.

I’m here to present evidence—for your
consideration—that things may not be as

they appear

Undoing a life-long belief is no easy task.

But in order to make informed decisions, to
look ourselves in the mirror and ask if we

are truly living the values we purport to
have, we must know the truth.

We must educate ourselves about what is really
going on, not rely on what we’ve been taught.

We must make decisions based on facts, not
fantasy.

I’ll want to preface this talk by saying
that I’m going to be transparent with you

and I’ll even tell you if I don’t know
something.

I will be focusing rather intensely on the
situation here in Ireland.

Now I’m obviously not from here—and as
much as I strive to be diligent in my research,

it would be a grave misjudgment and incredibly
presumptuous on my part to come here and try

to tell you about your own country, especially
on something so incredibly central to your

country’s history, economy and culture,
as animal agriculture.

The facts I’ll present today are not of
my creation—I’ve sourced them from primarily

Irish governmental and industry documents,
the European Union, and many, many others.

You don’t even have to believe me—I will
be providing you with a link to a resource

sheet containing a full transcript of this
talk with detailed citations for every fact

I state, a full bibliography and additional
resources so that you can dig deeper.

We’ll only be able to barely scratch the
surface in this brief window of time we have

together.

So let’s get started.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term “veganism,”
vegans do not eat, wear, or use anything that

came from someone else’s body.

We don’t eat meat, drink milk or eat cheese.

We don’t consume eggs or honey.

We don’t wear leather, wool, silk, or down.

We don’t use products that were tested on
animals or contain byproducts from their slaughter.

And we don’t attend circuses, zoos, aquariums,
or any other event that exploits living beings

for our entertainment and pleasure.

Now you may think this is an extreme way of
life—most people do.

Maybe it seems unrealistic, unnatural, even
dangerous.

Perhaps a well-intended but misguided over-reaction
to isolated cases of animal cruelty.

After all, most people identify as animal
lovers—they don’t want to cause the suffering

and death of innocent beings anymore than
vegans do.

But all those undercover videos of abuse and
horror stories of cruelty you hear in the

news—those are in America, right?

Or China.

Or some far away land.

Or a case of one corrupt individual giving
all farmers a bad name.

Or the inevitable product of factory farms,
big agribusiness, and corporate greed.

But it’s not like that here.

Here we have smaller farms.

Higher standards.

Better conditions.

Stronger regulations.

Our farmers care about their animals.

Maybe your family or you yourself are involved
in some aspect of animal agriculture and find

the claims of many animal activists objectionable,
inflammatory, and completely out of line with

your own practice.

Or maybe the rolling green pastures you drive
past, with peacefully grazing cows seem to

be another world from the vegan arguments
against beef and dairy.

Or maybe you have a friend who raises their
own chickens for eggs and treats them like

family members, nothing like the tiny cages
in the media.

Certainly there’s a middle ground between
systematic abuse and the extreme measures

of veganism?

A way of farming animals that’s inline with
the inherent values of humanity: stewardship,

compassion, respect for life, humane treatment.

Assuming this is the case, how much do you
know about the exact nature of these higher

standards and stronger regulations—or even
the origin of the animal or animal product

on your table?

Where were they born?

Where and how were they housed?

How were they treated?

How were they killed?

Unfortunately—or, you may think fortunately—the
hypothetical exercise we started off with

is total fantasy.

The vast majority of people posses very little
to no knowledge of where their food comes

from and how the individuals from whom it
was taken were treated—including the Republic

of Ireland and the whole of the EU.

What we eat is such an accepted part of our
every day life that most of us have never

even thought to question what we’ve been
told.

This isn’t due to a lack of intelligence—this
information is deliberately difficult to find—and

even then, it’s couched in euphemisms and
dense legal language.

Which makes you wonder— if there’s really
nothing wrong with how we breed, raise, and

kill the animals we eat—if it really is
better here, why such make such an effort?

Today we’re going to decode this language,
look behind closed doors—we’re going to

take that figurative bite and see the history
of the animals we eat.

And this is not just about them, but also
the environment, our health, and the health

of our family.

You deserve to know the truth about what you’re
putting in your body—about what you’re

feeing your children.

And you certainly deserve to know what you’re
paying others to do to animals in your name.

Now I’m not even talking about instances
of overt abuse and neglect—which have and

do occur in Ireland— because we all know
such cruelty is unacceptable.

What we’re going to focus on are the standard
operating procedures and best practices.

You may already be familiar with some of what
I’ll cover—perhaps it’s even part of

your every day work—but remember today is
about seeing these accepted conventions through

new eyes—the animals’ eyes—and questioning
our mentality towards these beings.

To this end I’ll be using terminology you
may find objectionable when applied to non-humans—perhaps

overly anthropomorphic.

This is a perfect example of our completely
contradictory beliefs.

Humane regulations are an inherent admission
of animals’ ability to suffer and feel pain.

So how can we claim that our standards are
higher, our animals better treated, that they’re

healthy and happy—then deny that they even
possess these capacities when asked to see

from their perspective?

We cannot have it both ways.

So let’s see how the vast majority of Ireland’s
population lives.

The Republic of Ireland’s human population
is now over 4.7 million.

Of course this does not include the over 1
and a half million pigs, 5 million sheep,

almost 7 million cows, and 11 million chickens
and other birds.

As you most likely are aware, Ireland’s
main animal agriculture outputs are dairy

and beef, however the most highly consumed
animal products in the Republic are pig meat

and poultry.

In fact, Ireland has one of the highest levels
of poultry meat consumption within the EU

at 32.8kg per person in 2015, finally overtaking
Irish per capita pig meat consumption by over

a kilo.

And, believe it or not, at least according
to the respective countries’ statistics

from 2014, Ireland’s population consumed
almost 7 kilos more poultry per person than

the United States, and between 9 and 24 kilos
more red meat, depending on the measurement

parameters.

It just so happens that the most highly consumed
meats in Ireland are the most intensively

farmed, though this can be easy to miss as
the Agricultural Census groups pigs, poultry,

horticulture, fruit and mixed crops as “Other.”

Ireland’s pig industry states in its own
2015 report that “currently 99%+ of Irish

pigs are bred and reared in indoor, non-straw
bedded, slatted or solid floor systems.”

In 2003 the European Commission stated that
while “the majority of pigs for fattening

(81 %) are reared on units of 200 pigs or
more,”…[t]he industry in…Ireland is

characterised by units of more than 1000.”

Within the pig industry worldwide, it’s
standard practice to “process” piglets—a

perfect example of the euphemistic terminology
with which we reduce individuals to inventory.

It allows us to distance ourselves from our
actions.

During “processing” baby pigs have their
teeth cut or ground, their ears sliced or

pierced, their tails cut off and boys have
their testicles ripped out—all without anesthetic.

While the Irish pig industry seems to favor
raising intact males, the Republic’s laws

explicitly permit unanaesthetized castration,
along with teeth and tail cutting of piglets

under 8 days of age.

Ear tagging, notching, or other “lawful
application” of identification are permitted

at any age on any animal.

Baby pigs are killed before they’re 6 months
old—a decade before their natural lifespan.

The brief time they get to spend with their
mother is through the thick metal bars of

her farrowing crate.

Nursing mothers are tightly confined, unable
to turn around or interact with their babies.

Pigs are highly intelligent and incredibly
social, ranking with primates in their level

of social cognition.

Mothers can recognize their piglets by sound
alone, and sing to their babies while nursing—referred

to in studies as “nursing vocalization.”

But despite their scientifically recognized
array of complex emotions, piglets are separated

from their mother within days or weeks of
their birth, with Ireland specifying no earlier

than 21 days.

The sooner her babies are taken, the faster
she can “re-enter production.”

At her “time of service,” the astounding
term for forceful penetration of her vagina

with an instrument full of boar semen, she
may legally be chained in place, one of the

number of exceptions allowing the tethered
restrained of pigs.

Tethering stalls as a whole, where pigs were
chained in place all the time were outlawed

by the EU in 1995, but as we’ll continually
see with all regulations, this came with ample

exceptions, loopholes, and a 10 year window
for implementation.

In 1998 91% of Ireland’s mother pigs were
still confined to sow stalls or tethered.

And when sow stalls, also known as gestation
crates, were subsequently outlawed through

a 2001 EU decision, again with ample fine-print
exceptions and only for a certain portion

of their pregnancy, Ireland was one of nine
member states found to be non-compliant in

2013, with the European Commission stating
they’d “had twelve years to ensure a smooth

transition to the new system and to implement
the Directive.”

Later that same year, the organization Compassion
in World Farming released an undercover video

from their investigation into five pig farms
in Cork, Waterford and Kerry, with one investigator

stating, “These are the worst pig farms
that we have seen in Europe, and the worst

conditions that I have seen in years,” finding
pigs covered in their own excrement, relegated

to filthy pens, cannibalizing dead pigs left
in their pens out of boredom, bins full of

carcasses, weak and emaciated pigs left to
die, open wounds, among other violations.

Fearing their findings were an indication
of conditions within “a large section of

Irish pig farming,” the organization noted
how “Ironically, as these investigations

were taking place, Ireland held the EU Presidency.

During their tenure, the Irish Government
made a show of taking the lead on animal welfare.”

Humane regulations do not equal humane treatment.

As I mentioned earlier, there’s a tendency
to dismiss these kinds of investigation as

isolated incidents—five isolated incidents
in this case.

That’s why I’m laying out in such detail
the exact nature of the highest standards

available—standards that reduce intelligent
beings to machinery.

That allow the repeat sexual exploitation
and confinement of mothers, the mutilation

of babies, the separation of families in order
to churn out the next round of living products.

If we look at Ireland’s own portrayal of
ideal conditions, images printed in welfare

guides, pig farms featured on Ear to the Ground,
and make the effort to see with a fresh set

of eyes, how can we call this treatment humane?

If this is the highest standard, what’s
happening when the camera’s not rolling?

This particular episode of Ear to the Ground
perfectly illustrates our true motivation

for enhanced welfare—allowing a few pigs
to access to the outdoors for the first time

in their lives to see if this improves the
flavor of their flesh and the price their

carcasses will fetch.

Ireland’s Pig Industry Stakeholders in their
own 2015 report cite animal health and welfare

as major challenges, and propose a financial
incentive of €200 per sow for depopulation—meaning

payment for killing and “restocking” their
“inventory.”

In 2015, 3.2 million pigs were killed in export-approved
plants in Ireland.

When we add in the estimate for non-export
approved plants and the 181,000 Irish pigs

shipped alive to other countries, the body
count climbs to 3.6 million (3,575,737).

This does not include pigs “destroyed”
for disease or depopulation, nor the worn

out mother sows killed with their “production”
declines.

Deemed unfit for human consumption, even in
their death’s these serially abused beings

are denied any recognition of individuality.

If we are capable of treating these social,
intelligent, emotive beings—who show affection

and play in many of the same ways as our beloved
canine companions—with such malicious, selfish

disregard, imagine what we’re capable of
doing to beings with whom we’re less able

to relate, 2015 was a banner year for the
Irish Poultry and Egg industries, with rising

global demands and domestic consumption.

Along with poultry surpassing pig flesh as
the most eaten meat in the country, Irish

egg consumption and production are also rose,
with the nation’s 240 egg producers churning

out 281 million more eggs in 2015 than five
years prior.

By sheer quantity alone, chickens are the
most severely exploited of farmed land animals.

the mothers of the pig industry, layer hens
are imprisoned, used up, and thrown away when

their bodies give out prematurely from the
extreme demands of production.

Hens lose vital nutrients every time their
body forms an egg.

Every aspect of their lives is regulated to
ensure maximum output.

From breeding them to produce eggs at an alarmingly
unnatural rate, to controlling their laying

cycles with days and days of persistent light
followed by long periods of complete darkness,

to starving them for weeks at a time in an
effort to force yet another egg cycle from

their worn out bodies, a process benignly
referred to as “induced molting.”.

Of course, the EU essentially banned the complete
removal of food and water in 1999, so instead

of suffering through up to 3 years of this
brutality, European hens whose production

has declined have the good fortune of being
slaughtered around their first birthday.

The vast majority of the world’s more than
7 billion layer hens spend their abbreviated

lives in cramped battery cages, unable to
even extend their wings.

Now you may have heard the big fuss about
the European Union’s groundbreaking directive

set in 1999 banning “barren battery cages”
by 2012.

From the media coverage, you’d think EU
layer hens are living in luxury.

But as we’re seeing with humane regulation,
the devil is truly in the details.

In reality, the directive merely replaced
barren battery cages with “enriched,”

meaning furnished, battery cages.

Reports extolled how hens would now be afforded
750cm2 each, neglecting the legislation’s

clarification that only 600 of these would
be usable due to “furnishings”—meaning

this most “revolutionary” advancement
for the rights of layer hens granted them

each an additional 50cm2.

Understanding the true impotence of this legislation
makes its pathetic implementation all the

more baffling.

In 2012, nine countries told the European
Commission that their farmers would not meet

the deadline for conversion, with four additional
countries saying it was unlikely they’d

be ready.

These thirteen countries had over 12 years
to grant the laying hens they enslave a meager

50cm2.

And all the while the media celebrates the
victory for animal welfare, the public eats

more and more eggs, reassured by their higher
standards, and the individuals this entire

charade is supposed to be for, remain just
as exploited.

This is readily evident if when we put a face
to the figures.

Meet Alice and Joy.

They were both liberated with a few of their
sisters from Irish egg farms and brought to

Eden Sanctuary just outside of Dublin, where
they walked on grass and saw the sky for the

first time in their life.

Alice came from a battery cage farm.

Joy came from an enriched cage farm.

Eden’s founder, Sandra Higgins, described
in a report on the EU Directive the conditions

in which Joy and her friends were imprisoned.

“A large number of them had extremely inflamed
and swollen bodies, obviously stressed to

the limit by the human demand for eggs.

One hen was barely able to walk, her legs
unable to keep her body upright because they

were forced so wide apart from the swelling
in her abdomen.

Some had prolapsed from the effort of laying
eggs.

Some died of egg peritonitis.

Joy, like the others, was exceptionally light,
with a mere covering of skin and feathers

over her sharply protruding keel or breast
bone.

She had ammonia scalds on her skin.”

Apparently they hadn’t seen the news to
know how fortunate they were to be living

under the highest of standards.

Confronted with this reality, most people
propose a shift to free-range and cage-free

facilities.

But as we’ve seen, the only comfort these
labels bring is to our own conscience.

Cage-free birds are crammed into tiny sheds
and have twice the mortality rates of battery

caged hens.

They still have their sensitive beaks cut
or burned off, and as they still suffer the

same predisposition to osteoporosis from their
inbred overproduction of eggs —which, with

their increased opportunity for movement,
results in an increased incidence of fractures.

Their bodies are their prisons.

The most horrifying consequence of our perverse
genetic manipulation, is the fate of male

layer chicks.

We’ve optimized our machines, you see, and
designed one kind of chicken for meat and

another kind for eggs.

Because of this, the egg industry produces
billions of unwanted male baby chicks every

year.

To “dispose of”—as it’s termed—these
baby chicks, they are either painfully gassed,

slowly suffocated in plastic bags, or they
are ground up alive.

This is standard practice all over the world,
regardless of cage-free, free-range, and organic

labels.

The EU regulation under which Ireland operates
lists maceration as the preferred method,

specifying that chicks must be less than 72
hours old when the are killed –they are

not even granted three days of life.

Now you won’t find any mention of this barbaric
practice in Ireland’s newly implemented

Animal Welfare Act, or anything specifying
methods of confinement and slaughter.

And even if you manage to unravel the convoluted
language and trace the overly complex changes

in legislation enough to find what eventually
became part 7 of Schedule 5 of the Welfare

of Farmed Animals Regulations, you’ll find,
amongst a myriad of disturbing details of

legalized murder, “The permitted methods
for the killing of chicks,” cleanly laying

out the proper way to grind up conscious,
living, feeling, day old babies.

Of course if you happen to look deeper and
find that Schedule 5 was deleted in its entirety

in 2013, you may understandably assume chick
disposal was abolished.

In reality, the reason Ireland’s new Welfare
Act seems so sterile is that it simply defers

the gruesome details to the EU Regulations,
and Ireland-specific supporting statutory

instruments.

I hope by now my initial claims that we can’t
trust what we are told are sounding slightly

less like a conspiracy theory.

If you’re wondering why this hasn’t been
exposed on the news, it has.

And every time it’s people are appalled,
outraged, disgusted.

They wonder how anyone person or industry
could be so barbaric.

And they continue to eat eggs, not realizing
they’ve just answered their own question.

The European Commission estimates that the
EU kills 330 million chicks every year, with

global estimates at 3.2 billion.

The chickens of Ireland’s raises meat industry
aren’t any better off, bred to grow at such

alarming rates that they collapse under their
own weight before being sent to slaughter

at only 5-6 weeks old.

In 2015 Ireland killed a record 80.3 million
chickens in approved export plants alone.

Ireland’s SafeFood review not only describes
in detail how Irish chickens are hung upside

down and dragged through electrified water
baths, but also addresses the health impact

on the human population.

Campylobacter is the most common cause of
bacterial gastroenteritis in Ireland, with

“the highest burden…seen in children under
five.”

In 2008, of the broiler chicken carcasses
inspected from Ireland, 98% were contaminated

with Campylobacter.

That same year, Ireland had the most outbreaks
of Cryptosporidiosis and E-coli in the entire

EU and EEA.

And I’m sure your familiar with bovine spongiform
encephalopathy or mad cow disease—which

brings us finally to most iconic and the most
profitable sectors of Ireland’s animal agriculture:

dairy and beef.

Ireland is home to over 6.3 million cows.

1.7 million were slaughtered in factories
& abattoirs in 2015, with total “disposals”

as it’s termed, reaching nearly 2.1 million.

But these numbers say little about the lives
of these beings.

We all know milk comes from cows.

We may think they have a constant supply of
milk and even that they need to be milked

to relieve the pressure.

But cows are mammals, just like us.

They produce milk for one reason: to feed
their babies.

Cows carry their babies for 9 months, just
like we do, they lactate to feed their babies,

just like we do, and after weaning, they stop
producing milk, just like we do.

So in order to have a constant supply of cow’s
milk for human consumption, we need a constant

supply of pregnant cows.

In the dairy industry, as we’ve seen with
mother pigs, cows are repeatedly subjected

to what we call artificial insemination.

But were we to awake in the condition of our
imaginary scenario, take a sip of milk and

see the same experience from the cow’s perspective,
we’d not hesitate a moment to call it rape.

Cows are restrained, anally penetrated by
the inseminator’s arm, and vaginally penetrated

by the semen-containing rod.

Aside from the trauma of this experience,
cows often sustain internal injuries, which

is why AI training on female cows at slaughterhouses
is gaining popularity.

After all, any damage to working cows would
slow down production, and what’s another

violation when they’ll be dead soon anyways?

No matter where she’s raised or how she’s
housed, when a dairy cow gives birth, her

baby is taken away.

Can’t have them sucking up all the profits,
after all.

Animal Health Ireland’s handy CalfCare guide
advises that “dairy calves should be removed

from their dams,” meaning mothers, “immediately
after birth and hand-fed colostrum,” which

is the very first milk all mothers produce,
containing important antibodies.

They go on to explain that “the dairy calf
is going to be separated from the cow anyways”

as “dairy cows are not bred for their mothering
abilities,” citing the low quality of their

colostrum.

Not only does this negate the emotional devastation
of having child after child taken away, but

it even uses the consequences of our own exploitation
as a means of justification.

Cows bond intensely with their calves and
will cry for days when they are taken.

A former cattle rancher friend of mine turned
vegan when she witnessed her cows chasing

the trailer as it took their children away.

She says they cried for days and only stopped
when they lost their voices.

This is not anthropomorphizing.

It is a mother’s grief and it’s utterly
heartbreaking to watch.

If her baby is male, he is sent to a veal
farm where he is tied down, unable to move,

or locked in a cage where he cannot even turn
around until he’s slaughtered while still

only a few weeks old.

Veal, an industry that even many meat-eaters
oppose, wouldn’t exist without dairy.

Every cup of yogurt, every scoop of ice cream
and every glass of milk is directly connected

to the deaths of those baby calves.

Of course the dairy calves of Ireland are
shipped to other countries to meet their fate.

Female calves are doomed to suffer the same
fate as their mothers, whose worn out bodies

give out around 4 or 5 years of age, despite
their natural lifespan of 20 years or more.

They’re sent to slaughter for cheap meat
and pet food, deemed unfit for human consumption.

At the slaughterhouse, many of these mothers
face their final and most brutal separation

from yet another child.

While formal statistics are difficult to obtain
as most studies focus on the economic cost

of “fetal wastage,” accounts range from
approximately 10% to 70% of cows arriving

at the slaughterhouse pregnant.

Ireland’s welfare laws allow the unanesthetized
castration of cows up to 6 months of age with

a burdizzo, or a rubber ring around their
scrotum up to 8 days of age, as well as the

painful removal of their horns up to 15 days.

Of course Ireland’s Farm Animal Welfare
Advisory Council recommends these procedures

not be carried out simultaneously with the
weaning of beef calves, stating that, “Weaning

of the suckled calf from its mother can be
particularly stressful for both the cow and

her calf.”

Their dairy brochure offers a single bullet
point, that “Weaning of calves should be

done with the minimum of stress.”

An EU audit encompassing only a fraction of
Irish dairy farms between 2012 and 2014, found

up to 70 welfare violations per year, stating
that “the most frequently detected in bovine

animals is mutilation.”

And that despite corrective measures, “the
number of mutilation non-compliances detected

from 2012 to 2014 remained stable.”

Living beings aren’t meant to be production
machines.

Dairy cows are prone to infections from frequent
milkings, and are often pumped full of antibiotics

and growth hormones, all of which seep into
their milk.

Even here in Ireland there’s an official
number of pus cells allowed in milk, euphemistically

referred to as the “somatic cell count.”

In the United States, 750,000 pus cells are
allowed in every mL, with the EU specifying

400,000 cells/mL and Brazil allowing 1,000,000
cells/mL].

Yes, Ireland’s dairy and beef cattle are
largely pasture raised and on much smaller

farms than industrial production.

But even that’s changing.

With the end of the milk quotas, Ireland’s
largest dairy farmer said that in order to

compete, “the dairy farm of the future is
going to have to be bigger.”

And for the cow, the pig, the chicken, duck,
turkey, for the lamb or sheep—they don’t

know the name of the company or person enslaving
them.

They don’t know what size the farm is or
in what country.

They are just as robbed of their rights and
their lives regardless of location

Our rationalizations and justifications are
of no use to those whom we exploit.

With some of our most impressive mental gymnastics,
which would be admirable if it weren’t so

horrific, we say this barbaric mutilation,
this conversion of living beings from someONES

to someTHINGS is for their own good.

Because if we if we don’t clip their teeth
or cut their beaks or slice off their tails,

they’ll attack and chew on each other.

What we fail to mention, is that these behaviors
are stress responses to confinement in overly-crowded,

insanity-inducing conditions.

If we didn’t put them in these abusive conditions,
they wouldn’t react the way they do.

But we humans love to play the role of savior
in the disasters of our own creation.

We swoop in to milk the cow and relieve the
painful pressure of her swollen udder.

Pressure that wouldn’t exist had we not
taken her child away.

We’ve spent all this time looking at the
treatment of animals in Ireland, but the truth

is, Ireland exports the vast majority of its
outputs, including 90% of beef and around

85% of dairy.

In addition thousands of live pigs, chickens,
sheep, lambs, and unweaned calves—babies

we’ve stolen away from their mothers—are
shipped out of Ireland on extended, terrifying

journeys to other countries through all manner
of weather extremes.

If they manage to survive the journey, they’re
either fattened up for slaughter, or in the

case of veal calves confined and slaughtered,
or simply killed immediately.

Ireland’s transport reports show regular
violations of animal welfare regulations,

with Ireland as a whole receiving a Formal
Notice from the EU in 2011.

And when these beings arrive at their final
destination, the nature of their treatment

and their deaths are out of Irish hands.

Undercover investigations continue to expose
brutal abuse of these imported animals.

Ireland ships living beings across the EU
as well as to destinations like Tunisia, Libya,

Morocco, Kosovo, Albania, Rwanda, China, and
the Ukraine.

But what about the animals that you eat?

How are they treated?

Looking again at what’s eaten the most,
60% of pig meat and 90% of chicken consumed

in Ireland are imported.

Another SafeFood report found the majority
of Ireland’s population had very low awareness

as to the actual source of their food, illustrating
how a single slice of Hawaiian pizza processed

and packages in the Republic of Ireland, would
have ingredients from at least 19 countries.

Ireland is home to multiple multinational
corporations with the world’s largest beef

producer, JBS, recently relocating their headquarters
to the Republic, amidst criminal proceedings

for violating Brazilian laws.

In surveying and observing Irish consumers,
they found that “While many aspired to be

healthy, economical, and to support the domestic
market, this did not follow through to their

purchasing behaviour.

It was observed … that there is a marked
difference between consumers’ attitudes

and their behaviours.”

This finding was echoed in an EU study on
awareness of slaughter regulations, with the

majority of Irish consumers unaware of the
details or even whether regulations exist,

and just two of the 13,500 respondents from
across the EU citing animal welfare at slaughter

as a consideration in their meat purchases,
with the main driving forces being quality

and price.

Once again money trumps ethics.

Yes, the industry keeps the truth deliberately
hidden, but to be honest, most of us prefer

not to know.

We say we love animals, but it’s impossible
to love someone and profit from their death.

Of course farmers take care of their animals.

But we only need to look at the language to
see it’s not compassion, it’s maintenance

of inventory.

We even limit the parameters of their so-called
legal protection by the bottom line of cost.

We amass mountains of paperwork, conduct thousands
of studies, spend untold amounts of money,

form governmental, institutional and industry
panels, all to decide, define and decree the

right way to rape, confine, mutilate, kidnap
and kill.

I mean it really is absurd when we step back
and think about it.

Do we have manuals on how to humanely rape?

Or how to compassionately kidnap?

Or ethically rob?

Of course not because those are oxymorons.

They cannot coexist.

But when it comes to our treatment of animals,
we will bend over backwards and create massive

paper trails of regulations to feel good about
what we are doing.

We turn these living beings into data points,
flowcharts, and percentages—calculate to

a decimal point’s certainty the exact cost
of every aspect of their lives and details

for their deaths.

We relegate the annual mass murder of over
3 billion day-old conscious, innocent babies

to a footnote.

A footnote in a study conducted for the welfare
regulations we’re so graciously creating.

We deem them legally sentient, deserving freedom
from hunger, thirst, discomfort, pain, injury,

disease, fear, distress and mental suffering—then
use this very recognition of their capacity

to feel the same emotions and sensations as
we do to design—in language so disturbingly

detached it’s nothing short of sociopathic—the
exact manner in which we may legally violate,

imprison, cut, burn, alter, and murder them.

This is how profoundly illogical our thinking
is when it comes to animals.

It goes against all basic human understanding.

Knowing better but doing wrong anyway is worse
than having no knowledge.

Yet we have the audacity to hold this legislative
recognition of non-human sentience on high

as a giant step forward for the rights of
animals.

As if systematically exploiting individuals
with fully admitted knowledge and comprehension

of their capacity to suffer is something to
commend.

Look what we offer ourselves as evidence of
progress: one news report extolled the reduction

in animals slipping and falling on their way
to slaughter in one abattoir in one country.

When we look at our actions from the other
side, the perverse absurdity of our deluded

self-congratulations is astounding.

If you were in the place of these beings,
how grateful would you feel if your captor

laid down a bathmat on the ramp to your execution?

Is this really the best we have to offer?

Being the most courteous murderers?

The most considerate rapists?

Pouring untold resources into these convoluted
laws and regulations, all the while completely

blind to the fact that there’s another option
entirely.

One we don’t have to manipulate our values
to justify.

One we don’t have to couch in euphemistic
terms or bury beneath incomprehensibly dense

legislation.

One that allows us to finally align our actions
with our values and become the people we believe

ourselves to be.

Good people.

Kind people.

Animal lovers.

Stewards to this earth and its inhabitants.

Before we address—very briefly—issues
of the environment and health, I’m going

to play a short video.

While I’ve included footage on your resource
page of the undercover investigation into

Irish pig farms and the brutal abuse and prolonged
slaughter of live exported Irish animals,

I decided to take a different approach here
today.

The video I’m going to play only includes
footage of government-sanctioned conditions

and practices, all completely legal here in
Ireland.

If it really is better here, we should have
no objection to watching.

If you feel you must turn away, I’d just
ask you to think on the question: “If I

can’t watch the process, do I have a right
to eat the product?”

VIDEO

In my years of being vegan and speaking with
many, many non-vegans, I have yet to ever

hear one reason that even comes close to justifying
putting a sentient being through what we just

saw.

Not one.

You cannot watch that and say that the animals
we kill for our food don’t know any better.

That they die peacefully and humanely.

They can sense the fear.

They can smell the blood.

And they fight.

They fight to the end.

And you can’t say that it’s happening
in some far away place because it’s happening

all over the world.

The CO2 chambers you saw - those were the
medieval devices lowering pigs to an extraordinarily

painful death of burning from the inside out
– that is seen as the most humane method

of slaughtering pigs.

It’s employed worldwide, including here
in the Ireland.

The EU, in its groundbreaking legislation,
recommended phasing out the use of carbon

dioxide, but said “the impact assessment
revealed such recommendations were not economically

viable at present.”

Interestingly enough, Butina, the company
that manufactures the very chambers you saw

in that video—and the ones operating here
in Ireland—was one of the stakeholders involved

in that assessment.

It’s the absurdity of murderers deciding
how they’re allowed to murder.

As we saw with the disease outbreaks, it’s
not just the animals’ welfare that’s compromised.

In Ireland, just like the United States, heart
disease is the number one killer.

We’ve long had proof that a balanced vegan
diet can prevent and even reverse heart disease.

74% of men and 57% of women in Ireland were
overweight or obese in 2010, with the World

Health Organization designating Ireland as
the leader of Europe’s obesity crisis, with

almost the entire adult population predicted
to be overweight or obese by 2030.

More than 1 in 4 children in Ireland are overweight
or obese, with a SafeFood study finding 61%

getting insufficient dietary fiber, 40% exceeding
recommendations for dietary fat, and all exceeding

salt intake by 50%, specifying that “processed
meats … made a major contribution to the

salt content of all children’s diets,”
the very kind of meat that the WHO has designated

as a class one carcinogen.

We’re taught that animal products are necessary
for protein, vitamin D, B-12, iron, and other

nutrients, but these “foods” are a package
deal—inseparable from their disease-promoting

components.

I’ve included more in-depth information
on health and nutrition on your resources

page, as well as a link to a free comprehensive
guide to going vegan from Eden Farm Sanctuary’s

Go Vegan World campaign—but I want to speak
very briefly to fishing and the environmental

impact of animal agriculture.

Whether you eat fish and marine life or not,
this matter impacts all of us.

The ocean, or rather the phytoplankton within
the ocean, provides somewhere between 50 and

80% of our oxygen and the oceans ecosystems
store carbon in massive quantities—we are

destroying the very lungs of our planet with
the delusion of sustainable fishing.

Setting aside all arguments for animal ethics,
the destructive nature of animal agriculture,

the environmental crisis at hand should be
on the forefront of Ireland’s agenda—too

protect and preserve the incredible landscape
of this country, in which its citizens take

well-deserved pride.

And while Ireland is the first country to
implement a nation-wide sustainability program,

it unfortunately mirrors all of the major
green initiatives and government panels the

world over, proposing and celebrating symbolic
gestures, essentially applying media-friendly

Band-Aids to a severed limb.

Animal agriculture accounted for 34% of Ireland’s
greenhouse gas emissions in 2013, the single

largest contributing sector.

It’s responsible for 97.5% of ammonia, 89.2%
of methane, and 94% nitrous oxide and a greenhouse

gas that is 296 times more destructive than
carbon dioxide and which stays in the atmosphere

for 150 years.

Ireland had the 4th highest greenhouse gas
emission per capita in 2011 The National Competitiveness

Council reported in 2008 that the ROI was
“one of the highest carbon emitters on a

per capita basis in the OECD,” utilizing
less than half the OECD average of renewable

sources, with no waste to energy conversion,
stating “the least preferred waste solution

from an environmental perspective, dominates
in Ireland.”

Their subsequent 2015 Scorecard, showed Ireland’s
environmental performance (EPI score) and

rate of improvement still lagging behind OECD
average, with particularly poor performance

“in relation to biodiversity and protection
of habitats, fisheries and water sanitation.”

Keep in mind this is the impact of the iconic,
grass-fed, pasture-raised Irish agriculture.

As it is, EPA documents show time and again
the waste lagoons from pig and dairy farms

and wastewater from rendering plants contaminating
Ireland’s protected waters, and mislabeled

or non-compliant handling of SRM materials,
meaning remains at risk of containing mad-cow

disease, directly threatening the public health.

The Irish Times reported the increasing environmental
devastation of New Zealand’s dairy practice,

saying how that country was “often held
up as an example of what Ireland could have

been if the milk quota regime had not pulled
the handbrake on our growth.”

Twenty days later, the quote was lifted.

Even if this approach was the ideal we hold
it up to be, we simply don’t have the land

for the number of animals we eat every year.

The amount of land that it takes to produce
37,000 pounds of plant-based foods will only

yield 375 pounds of meat.

You can grow 15 times more protein on any
given area of land with plants versus animals.

We have environmentally reached the point
beyond personal choice--beyond “you eat

how you want to eat and I’ll eat how I want
to eat.”

This is a global crisis and it’s not about
you and it’s not about me anymore.

We say that children are our future but what
future can they have when we are eating the

planet to death?

The world cannot sustain meat, dairy and egg
production.

It simply can’t.

We have to start aligning our actions with
our values.

I understand that animal agriculture is more
deeply rooted within Irish culture than I

can possibly comprehend—an enormous source
of pride for your country, which is all the

more reason to take action.

Far from contradictory, offensive, disrespectful
or extreme, the principles and practices of

veganism are the best hope for healing our
planet, and of preserving the beauty and history

of countries like Ireland.

And in making this shift, we’ll need farmers
more than ever—those who know the land when

so many of us find it foreign.

We’ll rely on them for our food as much
as we ever have.

We cannot justify what we do to animals out
of tradition.

Our traditions do not alleviate their suffering.

And our customs do not dictate the value of
someone else’s life.

Traditions can be wrong.

And customs can be cruel.

There are many atrocities in the history of
humanity that we now look upon with disgust

and disbelief at what used to be commonplace.

And you don’t have to give up taste or even
giving up our favorite foods.

These days there exist vegan alternatives
for virtually every meat, cheese, dairy creation,

even eggs.

And you can find recipes online for making
your own versions if the readymade alternatives

aren’t available in your area or are too
expensive.

Veganism, far from being an extreme lifestyle,
a threat to tradition, is the most sane and

rational way to live.

It’s the most powerful tool we have for
saving our planet, for improving our health

when we eat health-consciously, and for regaining
our compassion- for becoming the people we

believe ourselves to be: Good people.

And good people don’t destroy the planet,
leaving our children without a future.

Good people don’t throw newborn babies into
grinders.

Good people don’t rip day old babies away
from their mothers.

Good people don’t rape, torture and murder.

Yet “good people” everywhere are doing
all of these things with every bite of every

meal.

But that’s the beauty here.

You no longer have to buy into the lie.

You decide what goes into your body.

You decide whether you want to continue to
have others kill for you.

You decide whether you want to continue consuming
death, terror, and heartbreak.

You have the information at you feet.

The responsibility now lies in your hands.

You decide.

And my hope is, you’ll decide to go vegan.