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We have been doing it now for 15 or 16 years,
and it is working very well.
People are very happy with it.
I mean it is nice to have people back on the land,
working the land and everyone is more than happy to be doing it.
We have developed a system of fertility building
which relies very much on green manures.
So we are using plants to produce nutrients which are fixed from the air
to improve biodiversity,
and not relying on importing someone else's land to support our fertility
which is what most conventional and organic production is dependent on.
So we've kind of designed this system
which is more or less independent of the exterior forces,
and because we are building carbon in the soil this is particularly important.
I mean a very small increase in organic content in the soil
has a huge effect in terms of carbon entrapment.
In fact this is one of the biggest carbon sinks possible, soil.
So it is not only good for animals it is also very good for carbon capture
which is obviously good for climate change.
So we are building organic material.
The only way to build organic material long term is through plants,
you cannot do it through manure
because manure dissipates into the environment very quickly,
it gets broken down.
Whereas plants they leave roots in the ground
which gradually decay and become carbon.
In here there's actually 4 different types of green manures, 4 different plants.
All doing slightly different things but all building fertility.
And the final outcome of this is a soil that is very friable,
good population of worms, easily worked -
it doesn't take as much energy to work soil when it is in good condition -
and very good for plant roots.
So this forms the basis fertility for future cropping.
For future cropping, yeah.
We grow a whole range of crops:
70 different types of vegetables.
Almost 300 sowings a year, almost one sowing every day on average.
So it is making the best possible use of land to feed people,
which is really what farming should be doing.
And I do very much hope that there will be a move, a transition,
from the conventional type of agriculture that we have now
to a stockfree agriculture in the future.
- Thanks a lot, see you again. - You're welcome. See you later.
Stockfree farming could support people in developing countries as well as here
and the same techniques would be beneficial.
We would actually not use the vast amounts of water, land, food
to support the livestock.
We would actually create more tree habitats
making a difference with climate change.
It has been interesting looking at the way
the environmental debate has developed.
I mean initially people thought carbon emissions
that's about the energy we use in our homes
or it's about the amount we drive or the amount we fly.
But increasingly people realised
that food and the environment are so closely inter-connected.
There has been a growing amount of research which is saying actually
the way we eat and what we eat and what we throw away
is having a significant impact on the environment.
Every step of the journey from the field to your plate is creating carbon.
It could be anywhere as high as sort of 18 % of greenhouse gas emissions
is caused by the meat and dairy products we eat.
Compare that to say with the aviation sector which is only 2 %.
So, you know, there is a 10 fold difference
between the aviation sector and the food sector.
We only have one planet and it is a defined size.
There is only a certain amount of arable land
and a lot of that is being increasingly degraded through animal agriculture.
At least in Australia certainly hard-hoofed animals
and many other parts of the world are degrading the quality of the land.
And we need to be very careful with the way that we farm
in order to make sure that that land is there to sustain us for future generations.
Cattle in many countries in the world outnumber the people.
The cattle themselves produce a lot of waste, they require a lot of land.
Methane is produced from them which is a huge contributor to global warming,
one of the most significant.
And for every kilo of meat an increasing proportion of dung goes onto the land.
In the US, as the FAO report says,
that is one of the primary causes of water table pollution.
In the Amazon the vast majority of deforestation is being used for cattle farming
and much of the remaining is for soya protein which is used as cattle feed.
So without this relentless drive to produce more meat
which is, you know, a high profit product,
we would have more Amazon which has been called the lungs of the world.
In addition to its contribution to climate change
you have to look at species loss,
you have to look at the native people who live there and so on.
The number of birds, the number of animals that live in a given area of forest
are essentially wiped out by it being converted to forms of agriculture.
It is like someone going into the Louvre in France and just smashing it up,
I mean it is mindless and it's just so unnecessary.
And we are destroying something that can't be replaced.
There are a host of things we could do
that would have a really significant effect on climate change as a society.
Things that we are looking at are things like transport, our energy supply
and then you have the way we use animals.
Given that global livestock production
is causing more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transport put together,
I think we are confronted with a question:
do we totally re-engineer our energy and transport systems
or do we just give up eating what I think are often unhealthy and cruel products.
There is also the case of fish stocks.
Most of the major ways in which fish are caught are fairly unsustainable.
We have things like drift net fishing
which is completely indiscriminate and catches every sort of fish in the ocean.
Then you have trawling which trawls the ocean floor
reducing plant biodiversity, destroying reefs.
People often say that fish farming is a, you know, sustainable option
but actually an even greater number of fish
are required to be caught from the wild in order to feed those fish.
I have a number of friends who say:
"Well what if we raised animals in a more ethical manner?".
The Omnivore's Dilemma is a very famous book
where that's his conclusion that he can move to the country
and raise his own chickens and his own animals.
It is a lovely concept if you like the taste of meat
but it is just not going to sustain 6 billion people and growing,
which is the world's current population.
I've always been a vegetarian, for my whole life.
So I have always respected animals to an extent.
My boyfriend challenged me to become a vegan
because he has done the vegan challenge for a month.
And I was inspired, so I went into it with full enthusiasm
and I got all the benefits: I felt good about myself,
I got lots of vitality, I lost weight as well.
And I am proud of myself and I am more than anything proud of the fact
that no animal is harmed by what I eat.
And that is what I think veganism is about - living in harmony with everybody.
Our thinking about nonhuman animals is very confused
and people that have chosen to lead a cruelty-free, plant-based lifestyle
are baffled as to why other people have not made the connection.
Many of us live with companion animals, such as dogs, cats and rabbits.
We share our homes with them, consider them members of the family
and we grieve when they die.
Yet we kill and eat other animals that, if you really think about it,
are no different from the ones we love.
This is known as speciesism -
a prejudice against members of a different species.
Most people don't question their habit of eating animals
as they've been brought up to believe it's normal behaviour -
but causing suffering should never be considered normal.
According to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization,
humans kill approximately 56 billion animals for food each year
and this doesn't include fish.
This quantity can only be achieved by factory farming animals
which can lead to diseases such as Bird Flu, Swine Flu, BSE and MRSA.
Antibiotic-resistant microbes are the result of the over-use of antibiotics.
Over half of the antibiotics in the UK are given to farmed animals not humans
and farmed animal diseases can spread to humans.
Behind windowless walls, it's easy to turn a blind eye
to the horrific reality of factory farms and slaughterhouses.
You may think this footage is old,
that things are not like this anymore.
Wrong.
This is exactly what it's like.
And what happens to the farmed animals who live outside
is not too dissimilar.
Free-range chickens will usually be slaughtered for meat at 8 weeks
and organic at around 12 weeks.
People see cattle and sheep grazing in the fields and think they're OK,
but they'll also be sent to slaughter like all animals bred for food.
Factory farmed and free range animals are treated as commodities
and their individual needs or preferences are not respected.
And it's not just to produce meat.
Every year millions of farmed calves and chicks die
in order to produce milk and eggs.
Male chicks don't produce eggs and are not profitable for meat production,
so are killed the day they're born.
And laying hens, when their egg production starts to fall,
are also killed long before their normal life expectancy.
It's no fun for cows either.
In order to produce milk the dairy cow must give birth to a calf.
As soon as the calf is born they form a strong bond with their mother,
yet within a few days they're usually separated, causing extreme distress.
The male calves do not produce milk
and are usually shot at birth or sent for veal production
and the female calves are added to the milk production line like their mothers.
Three months after the loss of her calf, while still producing milk,
she's usually made pregnant again.
She's put through this exhausting procedure three or four times,
until she too is deemed redundant and killed.
More than 20 % of dairy cows sent to slaughter
have been found to be pregnant,
and the skin from these unborn calves is used to make soft suede.
Many people assume that leather is an incidental element
of the rearing of animals for meat.
It's not.
It's used to produce shoes, jackets, wallets, gloves and furniture
and so purchasing leather goods
helps make the rearing and killing of animals a profitable concern.
Just as we have tried to end racism, sexism and ageism,
we can also try to end speciesism.
Enjoying a plant based diet and vegan lifestyle
is the ultimate protest against animal exploitation;
it's taking action every day to reduce animal suffering and death
by decreasing the demand for all animal products.
I don't like watching the animal cruelty footage
but by us watching it together we can make a difference,
we can empower ourselves by being educated what is going on
and then change it.
With the mounting evidence -
compassion, our health, the environment, water pollution,
supporting developing countries, food security,
rising population, sustainability, the rain forest -
when people ask "Why are you vegan?",
perhaps the question should be "Why aren't you?".
Please, make the connection.
I like being able to abstain from the negative aspects of food culture
and be able to celebrate the positive ones.
Becoming vegan is not mean just changing your diet
it's caring about animals and global warming also you're changing your lifestyle.
I feel wonderful being a vegan.
It is the best thing I have ever done.
If we want to have a lower carbon diet
we should be eating more vegan food.
I think there are misconceptions about being a vegan
which stops people exploring it, investigating it, seeing it as a possibility.
In my opinion the real reason people eat meat and dairy
is because they like the taste of it.
When you look at the evidence is that taste really worth it?
The case for veganism is so strong on a number of fronts
from the animal welfare point of view, from the health point of view
and from the environmental point of view
that I would never go back.
Food when I was pregnant was very easy.
They tell you not to eat all the things that already weren't in my diet.
It was brilliant.
People would say to me:
"Are you having trouble, you know, cutting out cream cheese?",
and it's like: "No! Because I don't eat it anyway".
I feel change has to come very quickly.
Time in a way is not on our side but we know we have the solutions in place,
and we know that stockfree organic works.
So whether people are concerned about developing countries,
the environment, their health or our fellow creatures,
becoming vegan is an active, positive and compassionate choice.
Yeah I suppose maybe I do feel proud but I have never really thought about it.
But I feel lucky more than proud I think.
For the future I hope that more people respect each other,
care for the planet a little bit more,
and respect animals a lot more
and just try a cruelty free diet.