meeting pigs eating meat

How I Decided Whether to Eat Meat – Part 3: Meeting Theresa and When Animals Die

Gavin Wren Food Opinion Pieces, Writing

Entering Andy’s farm, there was a garden centre feeling to it. Not a kitsch, OAP populated tea room, but an absence of the sprawling, muddy, farmyard surrounded by barns stacked with hay and tractors. The driveway was lined on both sides with potted plants of all sizes, from waist-high saplings through to towering specimens, as if we were entering a nursery for rare and exotic plants, before the driveway finally opened out, with the requisite hay-filled barns loomed into view.

Andy is an avid horticulturalist, growing various unusual bamboos on his labyrinthine farm, which has been developed from bare fields and a caravan into a rural idyl with a farmhouse over the last twenty-odd years. There’s also a plethora of unusual looking chickens, geese, sheep, cows and the reason for our visit – rare breed pigs. Specifically, the three sisters, a black-haired, enthusiastic and talkative trio who…

Open Farm Sunday sheep

Open Farm Sunday 2017 – JC Farm, Little Kingshill

Gavin Wren Food Education, Writing

Animals make people happy, it’s a proven fact of life.

People who have dogs are proven to be healthier, happier people. In America, a care home introduced cats, dogs and 100 birds for the elderly residents to look after and it possibly saved some of their lives. A man who had given up on life was drawn back into the world by a pair of parakeets. Animals are also a cornerstone of the food system, helping to provide eggs, milk, yoghurt, cheese, meat, leather and lots more besides, something the little people of the world need to learn if they’re going to understand where their food comes from in the future.

Scape Goat.

A few months ago I saw an advert on Twitter for Open Farm Sunday, an annual event run by LEAF, when farms around the country open their doors to the public, to meet the furry, fluffy… come and read more…