Imagine this; you wake up on your birthday and your mum has made you a delicious breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs, two pieces of toast with creamy butter, and a side of crispy bacon. Sounds good right? What if I told you that those eggs came from chickens locked up in cages as small as an A4 piece of paper? The butter spread across your toast came from a pregnant cow that has been forcefully hooked up to an electronic milking machine and frequently suffers from electric shots. The crispy side of bacon came from a piglet that had been slaughtered at the tender age of 6 months. Doesn’t sound too delicious now, does it?
Hello, my name is Lily Nicolaou, and I am privileged to be here today at the 2019 DoSomething conference. Today, I am here to expose the ethically abhorrent practices that continue to exist in the production of many animal products. Before I call on everyone to take action against the unjust practices that continue to thrive in the agricultural industry.
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The topic of veganism has been covered dramatically throughout the media recently. You have probably seen story after story, whilst scrolling through Facebook, about militant vegans causing pandemonium all over Australia. Consider this headline: The Cult of the Vegan Vigilantes. This article highlights how an angry army of vegan protesters shut down one of Melbourne’s busiest intersections during peak hour traffic, consequently, disrupting tram routes and forcing numerous ambulances to be rerouted. The article goes on to further explain that the vegan activists have been charged with obstructing and resisting police and roadways. Undoubtedly the vegans caused huge disruptions in Melbourne’s CBD and the media focussed on this and represented them as irrational and delusional ecological terrorists forcing daily commuters into embracing their ideology. Behind this representation is the cultural assumption that vegan activists are justified in causing chaos and anarchy because of their belief that the vegan lifestyle is a healthier and more sustainable way to live. This media portrayal is problematic as it only depicts the most extreme activists of the vegan movement which undermines the effectiveness of the cause and deters society from considering the vegan lifestyle. This is a shame because underneath the irrational behavior, highlighted within the media, at the very heart of the vegan movement, there are some very real, very worthwhile, and very strong arguments as to why going vegan is extremely beneficial. And I am here to tell you why.
I urge all Australians to adopt a vegan lifestyle, as it is not only a more ethical way of living, but it helps save the earth’s finite resources and simultaneously benefits the environment. There is tremendous hope for the future of animals, the earth’s resources, and the environment if we stand as a united front. We, as the consumers, have the power, we have the choice and we have the freedom to be able to make a change, to be able to do something.
The treatment of animals on factory farms is atrocious, it is unjust, and it cannot continue. A factory farm is a large industrialized farm on which large numbers of livestock are raised indoors in conditions intended to maximize production at minimal costs. An Oxford study from 2018 reported that factory farms are the number one cause of animal cruelty in the world today. The conditions on these farms are far removed from the joyful farmyard scenes you used to see in your favorite picture books. Factory farming is the epitome of animal cruelty, the sheer scale of investment in torture is hard to grasp. Jam-packed into tiny sheds, most animals will never see natural daylight, will never roam freely and will never breathe fresh air. The agricultural industry treats animals, as mere commodities, units of production. This is evidenced by the horrific lives these animals are forced to endure from the day they are born, to, ultimately, the day they will be mercilessly slaughtered. Take pigs for example. Sow Stalls is a general practice in the pork industry. Sow stalls are metal cages in which female pigs are imprisoned after being artificially inseminated or mated with a male pig. They must remain confined in the stalls for the full duration of their pregnancy, which is 16 agonizing weeks, as dictated by the Model Code of Practice 2007. The stalls are so small that it offer restricted movement of only one step forward and one step back, and they are unable to move sideways. Sadly, as they are unable to move, they are forced to live in their own feces. Moreover, once a piglet is born, if it weighs less than 15 kg and is 3 weeks of age, it can be killed via blunt force trauma to the head which the Code of Practice states can be carried out with a “hammer or other suitable solid heavy objects.” Why are we allowing farmers to perform such satanic acts? Unfortunately, animal cruelty does not stop there, just as appalling practices are carried out on other animals as well. According to scientific research, farmed animals are sentient beings, meaning they are emotionally complex and intelligent, they have feelings just like you and me. In the 21st century, it is difficult to comprehend that such callous practices continue to exist. But with your help in adopting a vegan lifestyle, you are choosing not to support the morally bereft practices that continually occur in the agricultural industry.
When adopting a vegan lifestyle, you are not only thinking about the animals, but you are putting food on a plate for a poverty-stricken family. Children, women, and men, worldwide, continue to suffer because of the colossal demand for animal products. As of today, we have enough food to feed 10 billion people, while there are only 7 billion people in the world. However, 50% of grains worldwide are being consumed by animals in the agricultural industry whilst 82% of children living next to the production of livestock are starving. For example, in Brazil alone, the equivalent of 5.6 million acres of land is used to grow soya beans for animals in Europe. This land contributes to the increasing epidemic of world malnutrition by forcing impoverished populations to grow cash crops for animal feed, rather than food for themselves. Where is the dignity in choosing to put food in the mouth of an animal rather than the mouth of a starving child? Yet, considerably lower quantities of water and crops are required to sustain a vegan diet. Choosing to eliminate animal products from our diets is not only the simplest way we can reduce the strain on food, but it’s also the simplest way to fight inefficient food systems that disproportionately affect the poorest people all over the world. Therefore, it is evident that converting to a vegan diet is one of the easiest and most effective ways to help put food on a plate for a starving family.
Food is one of the single largest contributors to our environmental footprints – and animals are the biggest culprits. Around 50% of man-made pollution comes from the meat industry, with factory farming delivering higher emissions of greenhouse gasses than that of Australia’s transportation industry. Researchers at the University of Oxford found that cutting meat and dairy products from our diets could reduce an individual’s carbon footprint by up to 73 percent. Surely, that’s got to be a good reason to put down your ham sandwich. What’s more is that rearing livestock for animal-based commodities requires significantly more water, energy, and land than producing grain. For example, the meat and dairy industry are estimated to use 1/3 of the earth's fresh water. Let me put this into perspective. Your average hamburger takes 2498.37 liters of water to produce. This is equivalent to showering for two months straight! Yet, by being vegan up to 2,744,149.638 liters of water could be saved per person each year. Now you don’t have to be a genius to figure out that, that is a massive amount of water saved if everyone converted to a vegan lifestyle. Furthermore, roughly 91% of all Amazon deforestation is due to animal agriculture. It is predicted that every second, 2 acres of rainforest is destroyed to make room for pastureland. Over the past 25 years, the amount of forest that has been cleared is equivalent to the size of India! As a result, 110 animals and insect species are being reported as extinct every day. Therefore, it is evident that adopting a vegan lifestyle is one of the most helpful ways to reduce our ecological footprint.
The misrepresentation of vegans in the media as hostile, ecological terrorists, has put a colossal strain on how vegans are perceived within society. This misrepresentation deters people from adopting a vegan diet which is a shame as it offers numerous benefits not only to the individual but to animals and the environment. However, if we stand as a united front, we can make a change. So, to all of you inspiring men and women of the future, I ask you to join me in creating change! Change for the better! We are part of the largest demographic; millennials have the choice and the freedom to create a cultural change. It is our responsibility to avoid eating meat and dairy products and start paving the way to a brighter future!
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