Young farmer taking the fight to militant vegans
Fearless Alison Waugh, 20, has been threatened with kidnap and torture but she won’t be silenced by extremist bullies, she tells DOMINIC UTTON
TO A certain section of society, Alison Waugh is a hate figure. The softly spoken 20-year-old veterinary bioscience student has been subjected to a vicious campaign of intimidation. Her crime? Alison is a farmer. Born into a family of sheep farmers – her father tends a flock of 1,000 in Northumberland – she has worked with animals since she could walk, lambing them, rearing them, feeding them… and also sending them to slaughter.
She was singled out for a particularly nasty form of abuse from the growing militant vegan lobby after she took to social media to express her disgust at some of the invective the farming community has been receiving.
“I’ve had a lot of people who’ve taken the time to seek me out just so they can send me a barrage of abuse,” she says. “Almost daily I’ve had people saying that because I’m a farmer I’m a murderer and rapist. I’ve had people telling me, ‘I hope you and your family go and die in a hole for what you do.’
“I’ve not had people making specific death threats towards me but I certainly know people who have received really horrible threats just for being farmers. And these are coming from people who supposedly care about animals.”
Following the comments she made criticising militant vegan activists, leading trade magazine Farmers Guardian asked Alison to write an article – and if it reads like an impassioned defence of an industry already under threat, it has also intensified the hatred she has been receiving.
“I am proud to be part of British agriculture,” she wrote. “Farming is the oldest way of life and the only way we know. Practically born wearing wellies, I grew up jumping in puddles and feeding pet lambs. I am proud to have this heritage in my blood.
“The children I will one day have will know what it is to experience such a great responsibility – or liability! – as good stocksmanship. To learn compassion for another being was the first lesson for any of us born into it.
“And I like many others believe that if you do not understand the hours of dedication, backbreaking work, the early mornings and late nights and above all the sheer passion that goes into raising our animals then you do not have the right to preach to us. I am of course making a referral to the recent protests by animal activists at livestock marts across the country.”
SO-CALLED “protests” have come as the extremist wing of the veganism movement – described as the UK’s “fastest growing lifestyle” with supporters claiming a trebling of vegans in this country to half a million in the past decade – has turned to increasingly sinister tactics.
“A lot of farmers don’t speak up about it because they’re worried about their businesses and reputations and frankly don’t want to draw any more attention to themselves,” she says. “But I’ll always speak my mind. British farming is something I’m really passionate about, it’s what I grew up in and it’s what I’m going to create a future for myself in. And it needs to be preserved and protected from this kind of bullying.
“I don’t mind if you choose not to eat meat or animal products but I do care when imposing that choice turns militant. Apart from anything else it can harm animals too.”
She cites a recent example of activists protesting about the loading of pigs on to a truck to be taken to the slaughterhouse, pointing out that the protesters were only adding to the animals’ distress. “Getting held up, people poking cameras, hanging on the side of trucks, that stresses them more.”
Groups such as the Save Movement, which claims it wants to “build a mass-based, grassroots animal justice movement” believe that all animal farming is inherently immoral and should be stopped immediately. Some compare abattoirs to Nazi concentration camps and describe farmers as “torturers” and say vets “commit rape” by attending to animals.
Their strong words have increasingly been accompanied by direct action. The Save Movement holds what it claims are non-violent “vigils” outside abattoirs and cattle markets and says it “documents the animal victims and the activists” through photos and campaigns on social media. It insists it does not condone any illegal activity but it seems other activists are not so squeamish.
Last week it was reported how dairy farmers Jonathan and Dulcie Crickmore of north Suffolk received death threats after posting a picture of their calves on Facebook, and the National Pig Association says many of its members “cannot sleep at night” for fear of the noisy and intimidating protesters outside their farms.
The Association of Independent Meat Suppliers has even met with the National Counter Terrorism Police Operations Centre team to discuss how best to respond to the actions.
Since Alison’s article was published in the Farmers Guardian she says the attacks have not only become more vitriolic but more personal too. Her Twitter and Facebook accounts are now set to private and she has even had to take steps to ensure her safety.
“The response to that article was pretty astonishing,” she says. “It obviously touched a nerve. By lunchtime the day it was published it had 20,000 views and by the next morning that was up to more than 160,000. Suddenly I’ve become a kind of spokesperson for what farmers are facing from these people. My university actually took me aside and had a chat. They said, ‘Alison, they know what you look like now, you have to be careful’. They’ve told me to be aware of where I am and who I’m with, even around campus – and even not to go out on my own to places like the shops or the pub.
“Obviously my parents are pretty worried and now there’s the worry that they might be targeted too. It’s pretty scary really. All of a sudden I need to be extra vigilant, just for highlighting how myself and other farmers have received abuse in the first place.”
Despite those concerns Alison has no regrets about her article or “sticking up for the farming industry”. And although she is adamant that it is the “purpose” of some animals to be eaten, she also believes that action needs to be taken to protect farmers from increasing intimidation by those who disagree… before the abuse moves from the verbal to the physical.
“We’ve already got people trespassing on farms. They’re entering private property, going into cowsheds in the middle of the night and the worry is not only what they’re doing in there but what effect that’s having on the animals, or what might happen if a farmer was to confront them. And given the language they’re using there’s a real danger that these militant activities could culminate in something violent.
“I feel that farming is under attack. Something has to be done before something really bad happens.”