Samson’s drawing to the magazine of the French trade union Confederation Paysanne shows the anguish experienced by many farmers in the rich world, on the one hand the agro-industry that absorbs and oppresses every corner, and on the other hand the pressure of vegans, animalists and anti-specionists.

Those who defend the model of small farmers and farmers, which in French call agriculture paysanne and Ipar Euskal Herriko Laborantza win popular agriculture, have organised a series of arguments to deal with industrial agriculture that has been imposed for decades in recent decades. On the contrary, they have a new challenge among progressive social movements to cater to those who are much closer, defend the rights of animals and demand the renunciation of meat.

In our environment, especially the ELB Euskal Herriko Laborarien Batasuna has made an effort over these years to strengthen the position of farmers. Now Confederation Paysanne – Conf – picks up his arguments on this sensitive topic in a book: “What the baserritars say about the relationship between man and animal. Claiming popular livestock.” It is available in PDF format and anyone who does not know French will also adapt to Internet translation tools.

The first half of the book has been preserved in the testimonies of the peasants. 46 farmers who breed, reproduce and kill cattle, sheep, mare, chickens, geese and other animals for the feeding of people tell their experiences with animals… and militants who want to prevent them from dying or breeding. Here is the testimony of young Emile Jeannin, who reared cows and calves in the department of Cote d’Or.

“I heard the Begano word for the first time in 2016, when Franck Ribiere, the creator of Steak (R) evolution, explained to me the attacks suffered after the publication of a carnivorous film. I laughed at all those arguments that seemed ridiculous to me.
Then it was my turn to receive insults, incendiary messages, death threats. I couldn't understand this violence. Some who didn't know me, how could they censor my work, which they didn't know, and above all hate my ideas to the point of wishing me death? I was talking about a mobile slaughterhouse project, so I became an easy piece for the militants at the ends, and they sent me endlessly threats and insults. These attacks are, moreover, contrary to all farmers, which makes me even more incomprehensible.

We have our relationship with animals; we give them a name, taking care of their needs from birth to death, uniting that need to live of their products. These militants do not stand for us to take the ‘middle way’ between those who are good and evil for them, evil, good, prohibition.
These attacks have served me to reflect and talk about our profession in a different way. We don't have to embarrass or hide. We have to learn to protect ourselves from these physical or verbal violence, not to give up speaking, to share our experiences, our perspectives, to respect each other.”

Loving, killing and eating animals

Jeannin has reported the pressure of groups such as L214, L26life, Brigitte Bardot who not only want to eat or kill animals, but also ban livestock itself. But the pressure against meat and cultivation even reaches the baserritars of the closest people, often in many struggles or even vegans who buy and accompany the AMAP, the basket and the local trade. Not with threatening pressure, but with a mindset that jeopardizes the millennial profession itself.

Paradoxically, the small farmers, who best care for the animal and the land, are the ones who suffer the most: it is the closest who often resort to veganism, while the agro-industry can continue to calmly feed the majority of the population with junk food, filling the world with monoculture fields and giant farms of cows, pigs, rabbits or artificially fed chickens.

The Conf peasants, fortunately, have not fallen into the liver of vegans or anti-speciists at the risk of believing that there is only one conspiracy of the agro-industry. They have realised that they have arguments and that in addition to learning from the criticisms in them, they have to answer them.

Some of the arguments refer to ethics and morality: “It is immoral to kill animals for pleasure”, “slaughterhouses must be closed”, “animal species are on the same level as the human species”, “the fight to ban livestock is the search for moral progress, just as it is the fight against male slavery or male hegemony”.

Another set of arguments by vegans and anti-specionists refer to the model of agriculture, territory and culture: “It’s possible to feed on plants only, we don’t need to raise livestock,” “prohibiting livestock is progress for the planet,” “livestock conditions are bad for animal welfare.”

They have environmental arguments. “Cattle feed competes with human food,” “livestock generates deforestation,” “generates different pollution in water and air quality,” “contributes to climate warming, emits greenhouse gases,” “consumes large amounts of water.” Also in health: “Meat is carcinogenic, causes cardiovascular disease and obesity.”

Thanks to the general urbanization of the world, the only animals that people in the street see in their day to day are pets, who no longer live with the animals they have to see, help grow, feed, die and eat. In these times when food, almost all of them, has gone by far and in bundles, the visions of the life and death of animals have changed radically. As Conf says, “the people of the cities have moved away from the fields and the peasants and this has made the citizens unaware of how life works [living beings], to which must be added the mistrust that the agri-food industry has aroused with its scandals”.

Small farmers want to discuss the benefits to society of farming that combines crops with livestock. To the ecological balance of the agricultural system, combining trees, meadows, fields and livestock. Lifestyle, employment and the economy of rural areas. Spatial planning, cultural heritage, landscape, biodiversity (fences, meadows, soil fertility, grasses...).