A quick look at the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) website shows a 42-year history with more than nine million members and an annual income of around 80 million US dollars. PETA is an organization whose main goal is to turn you into a vegan[1] under the guise of preventing animal cruelty. A tough gig you would have thought, converting people to a low-quality diet which has its converts with poorer physical and mental health, its more expensive and its arguably worse for the environment than a conventional diet[2]. Best still if they managed to achieve their vegan goal it would likely result in catastrophic environmental outcome[3], mass starvation starting with the world's most vulnerable[4] and then cumulating in global conflict.
If PETA can be this incredibly successful with a dangerously delusional ideology imagine what Farmers could achieve with the incredible story we have to offer. Farmers have the ultimate good news story, from being custodians of the majority of our nation's landmasses, to caring and improving the environment we rely on to provide our livelihoods, how we care for our animals in the most humane way possible and how the food we provide sustains civilization 98.5% of the world's population lives in. Without organized agriculture there could be no civilization.
At a time when Farming Representation is in a spiral dive heading for the ground you would think it is an opportune time to look at the highly successful and relevant strategies the activists use to get enormous support both in membership and financially.
In Europe we have seen via social media the incredible farmer protests, the main stream media has chosen not to cover these protests as its not aligned with their climate-catastrophe narrative. Tens of thousands of full-time farmers left their farms to drive their tractors into the towns and cities. It is not like farmers have a heap of spare time on their hands, it would have to be something important to keep them away from their day-to-day responsibilities. The farmers, logic and reason won this battle they should never have been forced into having. If farmers were organized in an online community, their agenda could be aired, votes taken on critical issues and petitions with tens of thousands of online signatures sent to Government. Farmers should be able to mobilize online.
If farmers got together as the activists have, we could have membership bases which dwarf the anti-farming groups. We have allowed an information vacuum in the cities which is fast being filled by the insane anti-human ideologies. The consequences of our indifference are being the least important player in the supply chain with ever tightening margins, social stigmatism that we are out here emitting GHG's damaging the environment and being cruel to animals, that proper nutrition does not matter and it is better to get your food grown in a lab. We have become the dumping ground for so-called renewable industrial wind and solar complexes and their corresponding transmission lines. While ever we stay disunited, we can expect more of this. www.onfarm.co has been developed for us to use for free to unite, collaborate and engage with each other and our consumers. It starts with you having the pride to stand up for our industry, for the sake of everyone.
George King, Carcoar.
[1] https://www.peta.org.au/about/
[2] https://www.sacredcow.info/blog/an-open-response-to-the-guardian
[3] The microbes which break down organic matter in brittle tending environments live in the stomachs of herbivores, if we removed domesticated animals from the landscape there would be no reduction in grass fuel loads resulting in catastrophic fires. Brittle tending environments need herbivores to maintain them.
[4] The world's poorest live in arid season rainfall area's where animal agriculture is their only means of providing sustenance.
[1] https://www.peta.org.au/about/
[2] https://www.sacredcow.info/blog/an-open-response-to-the-guardian
[3] The microbes which break down organic matter in brittle tending environments live in the stomachs of herbivores, if we removed domesticated animals from the landscape there would be no reduction in grass fuel loads resulting in catastrophic fires. Brittle tending environments need herbivores to maintain them.
[4] The world's poorest live in arid season rainfall area's where animal agriculture is their only means of providing sustenance.