Pig business email

[Alison Banville]

I sent the email below to the list a couple of days ago but haven't seen it appear. 
 
It's clearly relevant to the list and is a direct reply to another member's post.
 
Have I missed it or has it been censored? 

 
  Great to see peeps opposing industrial animal agriculture - a good time to introduce those who've never heard of him to Howard Lyman, 'The Mad Cowboy'. Ex-cattle rancher and now president of 'Voice for a Viable Future'.
 
Howard appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show a few years back to share some unsavoury facts about beef production and was promptly sued, along with Oprah, by 'some Texas cattlemen, led by billionaire Paul Engler, owner of Cactus Feeders, 
Inc., (who) filed suit against Lyman, Oprah and Harpo Productions (which produces 
Oprah) over comments they made about beef safety...In a trial in Amarillo, Texas, in the middle of cattle ranching country, 
TV Star Oprah Winfrey 
and IVU President Howard Lyman won after a five-week trial grounded in the 
issue of free speech, public health, environmental quality and animal suffering.' 
 
Howard's awakening is quite a story - from his website: http://www.madcowboy.com/01_AboutPS.000.html
"As a 
fourth-generation family farmer in Montana for almost 40 years, I speak from 
a background of personal experience when I say that chemically based 
agricultural production methods today are unsustainable, and therefore 
ecologically disastrous. My experiences range from working in a large organic 
dairy to raising registered beef cattle to owning a large factory feedlot. I 
have farmed thousands of acres of grain and reproduced a herd of over one 
thousand commercial beef cows. In addition to raising cows, I have raised 
chickens, pigs, and turkeys. I have also grown crops such as wheat, barley, 
oats, corn, alfalfa, and grass. 
>I 
was involved in agriculture at a time when the call dictated getting bigger and better or getting out. I was educated in modern agriculture, and I can tell 
you from firsthand experience -- it is not sustainable. I followed all the 
modern advice and turned a small organic family farm into a large corporate 
chemical farm with a thousand range cows, five thousand head of cattle in a 
factory feedlot, thousands of acres of crops, and as many as thirty employees. I 
saw the organic soil go from a living, productive base to a sterile, 
chemical-saturated, mono-cultural ground produced by my so-called modern 
methods. 
>In 
1979, a tumor on my spinal cord caused me to be paralyzed from the waist 
down. That changed my life forever. I promised myself that, whatever the outcome 
of the surgery, I would dedicate the rest of my life to doing what I believed to 
be right -- no matter what changes that necessitated. 
>The 
period before and after the surgery gave me much time to think about the 
changes resulting form my methods of farming. Convinced that we were going the 
wrong way, I decided to become a voice for the family farmer and the land. In 
1983, I sold most of my farm and started working for farmers in financial 
trouble. This led to my working for the Montana Farmers Union and from 
there to Washington, D.C. as a lobbyist for the National Farmers Union.  
>For 
five years I worked on Capitol Hill for America's family farmers. In that 
time we had some small successes, such as passing the National Organic Standards 
Act. But even after the act became a law, it took the administration several 
years to allow funds for its implementation. I became convinced that the changes 
needed had to come from the producer and the consumers at the grassroots level. 
Until that alliance is put into play, the big money interest will continue to 
control public policy in the Congress of the United States."
> 
>Howard's journey didn't end there, however; he is also known as 'the cattle rancher that won't eat meat' the subtitle of his book (below). Howard is now vegan. That's quite a way to go in one lifetime:  
>"The 
question we must ask ourselves as a culture is whether we want to embrace the 
change that must come, or resist it. Are we so attached to the dietary fallacies 
with which we were raised, so afraid to counter the arbitrary laws of eating 
taught to us in childhood by our misinformed parents, that we cannot alter the 
course they set us on, even if it leads to our own ruin? Does the prospect of 
standing apart or encounttering ridicule scare us even from saving ourselves?  
>>That 
prospect intimidated me once, and I can only wonder now what I was frightened 
of. It's hard to imagine, now that I'm a hundred thirty pounds lighter, 
infinitely healthier, more full of life and energy, much happier. Now that I 
have vegetarian friends wherever I go, and feel part of a movement that is not 
so much political as it is a march of the human heart. Now that I understand how 
much is at stake. Now that I've come to relish shaking people up. 
>>I 
would love to see the meat industry and the pesticide industry shaken up, too. I 
would love to see feedlots close and factory farming end. I would love to see 
more families return to the land, grow crops for our own species, and raise them 
organically. I would love to see farm communities revive. I would love to know 
that I've wandered into my nation's heartland by the sweet smell of grain and 
not the forbidding smell of excrement. 
>>When 
you can't take it with you, all that really matters is what you leave 
behind."* 
>Howard F. Lyman, LL.D
>President & Founder, Voice for a Viable 
Future 
>
>________________________________
> * (from 
"The Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle 
Rancher that Won't Eat Meat", by Howard Lyman (with Glen Merzer, ©1998))  
>
>________________________________
> 
 
 
 

________________________________
 From: Adam Payne <AdamPayne_5 at hotmail.com>
To: TLIO <thelandisours at yahoogroups.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, 17 July 2012, 16:14
Subject: [TheLandIsOurs] Pig business at the Hornbeam Cafe, London [1 Attachment]
  

   
 
 
[Attachment(s) from Adam Payne included below]  



Join us at the Hornbeam cafe on the 25th July for a film screening and
discussion about the effects of industrial meat production, and the ways
in which mega farms are being resisted around the world. Campaigning group
pig business will screen sections of their recent films and lead a
discussion on the questions 'what's wrong with megafarms', 'what
alternatives do we have' and 'how are mega farms being resisted here in
the UK and Further afield.

7 - 8pm Soup (by donations) and informal chat.

8 – 8:45 Pig Business will show sections of their films highlighting the
issues around industrial meat production in the UK, US, Poland, The
Netherlands, Hungary and Romania as well as footage from protests against
a proposed megafarm in Foston, Derbyshire.

9 – 10 Discussion exploring what are the main issues with industrial meat
production, what alternatives do we have, and how is industrial meat
farming being resisted around the world.

All at the Hornbeam Cafe, 458 Hoe St, Walthamstow, E17 9AH, on Wednesday
25th July
 
    
      
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