World Farm Animals Day reminds of sentience and stopping the suffering of animals. October 2 is World Farm Animals Day, an international commemoration during which groups and individuals remind the public of the need to halt the widespread suffering and death of animals raised for meat, eggs, and dairy products. The day also promotes the cruelty-free alternative of a vegan diet and coincides with the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, the late Indian peace movement leader and vegetarian.

Hope Bohanec – Grassroots campaign director, In Defense of Animals; vegan (F): They have emotion, and they suffer. And I think that is even more important than their intelligence, especially when it comes to factory farmed animals.

VOICE: Founded by the US-based Farm Animal Rights Movement, the day is being observed in approximately 20 countries on six continents. According to the Farm Animal Rights Movement, consumption of animal products costs the lives of some 58 billion cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens and others who are killed in the world’s factory farms and slaughterhouses every year. This equates to more than 100,000 animals per minute, with most being babies under 6 months of age.

Kristina Brown – vegan cooking teacher (F): It was so shocking to me, what was really happening to the animal. When you have that kind of awareness, it’s very hard then to go back to eating it.
VOICE: The 2010 World Farm Animals Day also highlights five top hidden harms of animal agribusiness, which include perished cats and dogs from shelters along with chicken manure being used in chicken feed; growing dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and other marine waters, which are caused by primarily livestock- related runoff, and the sale of sickened animal meat for US school lunches.

Kris Nine – vegan, age 11 (M): I have never eaten a piece of meat in my life.

SMTV (M): Good for you! Why do you think that’s important for the world?

Kris Nine (M): Because animals are awesome. And we’re animals, so if we are hurting animals, it’s sort of like just hurting ourselves. Because it’s bad for the environment to hurt animals.

VOICE: Our support and appreciation, all organizers and international participants of the World Farm Animals Day, for exposing the truths about livestock farming’s effect on the animals, our health, and the environment. We pray that the time is soon when the global choice of a vegan diet allows animals of all species to live in deserved freedom and peace.