I spent most of my life in agriculture; I grew up on a cattle farm in Michigan (USA). And now I am a vegan and animal rights activist.

Compassionate viewers, welcome to Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Today’s program features the first of a two-part interview with Harold Brown of the United States who grew up on a cattle farm and also worked in the dairy industry for three years.

He eventually left the farm and became an animal advocate, a promoter of plant-based agriculture, an environmentalist and a vegan. He has formed his own non-profit group called “Farm Kind” and travels across North America to talk to audiences about sustainability, veganism, kindness to animals, and his experiences as a farmer.

Harold Brown appears in two documentaries by US director Jenny Stein – “Peaceable Kingdom” released in 2004 and the re-make released in 2009, “Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home.” The films focus on farmers who were in the animal agriculture industry, but ultimately rejected their profession because of the inhumane treatment and slaughter of animals and the severe damage to the Earth caused by livestock raising. During childhood, Harold felt deeply disturbed by the animal cruelty occurring on his parent’s farm.

When my brother and I, were fairly young, my grandfather had bought this dairy steer, he was a Holstein, a black and white cow to the farm. He was big, and we named him Max. Max, he liked being petted, and we grew attached to him. Well one day I came home from school, and, Max was gone, and I asked my grandfather, “Where's Max?” He said “Oh we had to butcher Max.” I cried; I was so sad that they killed Max.

Due to his heavy consumption of animal products, Mr. Brown had his first heart attack at the mere age of 18. But he did not actually realize that is what he had experienced until his father’s heart began failing many years later.

It wasn't until thirteen, fifteen years later my dad had his first heart attack and bypass, and I was the one person in the family who believed in cause and effect. These just don’t happen; there is a cause and effect to most things in a way, at least with our health.

Eventually Harold made a choice to leave his family’s cattle business and seek an alternative career.

There came a transition point where my brother and I were going to take over the farm, and I had decided that, because there were some changes that I had made in my lifestyle for the sake of my heart health. The family were frustrated with me and so on and it created a lot of stress, so my wife and I we just packed up our stuff and left the farm and we moved to Cleveland, Ohio (USA).

Now working as a auto mechanic, Harold learned from a customer about a compassionate concept that would transform his life.

And I was actually working as a mechanic and the very first car I worked on had this bumper sticker and I could not figure out that bumper sticker. I fixed her car. I delivered the car to her and I said, “Do you mind if I ask you about your bumper sticker?” And she said, “Sure.” I said, “It says, ‘I don’t eat my friends.’” I said, “Is that a joke that you’re not a carnivore?” And she said “No, I am vegetarian.” I said, “What’s that?” And she looked at me with astonishment, and said, “You don’t know what a vegetarian is?” I said, “No I’m 31 years old, and I have never heard that word.”

This encounter inspired Harold to learn more about this beautiful lifestyle and he reached out to vegetarians in his community for more information.

I found a vegetarian group in Cleveland (USA). My wife and I went to a potluck and at the potluck we met this amazing group of people that were concerned with environmentalism, but also spiritual growth and psychological healing. They created through this multi-disciplinary way of approaching life a safe place for me to deconstruct my past.

It was an enormous challenge for Mr. Brown to re-orient his views on the place of animals in our world given his farming background.

To question that indoctrination is difficult and most people aren’t willing to ( Right.) because it's frightening. They live in this irrationality that they are living the best that they can. ( Yes, yes, yes.) There is a lot of wisdom out there and good teachers and so on.

It's just whether we have the eyes to see them and the ears to hear them.

We tend to shut our eyes and shut our ears to these teachers and this wisdom

The thing that validated my cattle culture was television. And it was the commercials on television because every time you turn on TV you see commercials selling you a food product that has animal product in there. So I was looking at that, (feeling) I’m going great. I am helping to feed a hungry world. I’m meeting the demand for consumers. I worked three years in the dairy industry also and, especially when it comes to cheese, I was just seeing all these commercials and all these franchises and I’m just going

“Yes, I am doing the good work.” So how would I ever question that? Why would I question that? That’s the dominant culture. Well it took a crisis and I started to wake up.

When we come back, we’ll learn more about Harold Brown’s amazing journey from cattle rancher to compassionate animal advocate. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

It’s like that old saying, “It’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” Well I could curse my past and play the victim, or I could light one candle and reverse that darkness. And I did; I chose to do that.

Welcome back to Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants featuring the story of Harold Brown, a former cattle farmer who transformed his life and became an animal advocate and a vegan. Harold now speaks about how through a loving bovine friend, his compassion for animals which he had suppressed for years because he had butchered them for meat, was restored.

I had adopted a cow at a sanctuary, his name is Snickers. I visited him two or three times I think and then about six or eight months had past and I hadn’t seen him and there was this event where there were a whole bunch of people in the sanctuary. And I went into the cow barn and there were people in there petting the cows and talking to them. And over in the corner was Snickers chewing his cud and nobody was petting him.

Well, I thought “I wonder if he remembers me,” and I walked in just inside the gate and I just called his name. I said “Snickers” and put out my arms and he came running over to me and just slammed his head into my chest and just leaned against me and I just wrapped my arms around his neck and gave him a hug and then I just broke down.

Mr. Brown then realized that all this time he had relied on repeating a certain phrase in his mind in order to ignore his conscience when he harmed animals as a farmer.

I had this immediate mental image of a light switch right over my heart and I call it my “compassion switch” and I could turn this compassion switch on and off, depending on circumstances, on who is involved. I could turn it on for some people and turn it off for other people. Turn it on for some animals, and turn it off for the ones that I had to butcher.

To turn my compassion off, to turn my love off, to turn my empathy and sympathy off was three words. A phrase. And if I had the power to take this phrase out of the English language I would. It was the phrase “I don’t care.” Any time I had to do something that I thought was objectionable, something that I thought was not right, I would just say, “I don't care.”

And from that point, looking, from this new perspective, I realized that every time I said that it disconnected me mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually, from that other so that I could do whatever needed to be done. Whether it was to kill them, and butcher them, or to eat them. If I had an emotional connection with that animal, but I ended up butchering and then eating them, I'd feel "yes, yes" but I don't care, I need to eat. Or if I went out hunting, it's, "I don't care."

Harold now speaks about the pressing issues he believes that humanity must address and how we can move toward a constructive future.

People will look at environmental and social justice, animals’ rights, and veganism; they look at all these different things as different issues. They’re actually not different issues. They’re all part of the same problem; there is systemic problem in human culture. I really feel it’s our ego that keeps us tied up to these things and it’s those attachments that keeps us from seeing that how we treat the animals is how we treat each other, and how we treat the environment.

If we are able to easily look at animals as being a commodity, an economic unit, then we will always look at the other human beings as the same.

It is this kind of worldview that we developed and then it becomes this kind of destructive cycle of not looking beyond our own self and what we want. We have to open our eyes and open our hearts to what we all need – what the Earth needs and what all of creation needs and not just what we want.

Farm Kind is Harold Brown’s effort to help elevate the world’s consciousness and open people’s hearts.

I’m developing my own non-profit; it’s called Farm Kind. I travel around North America giving talks about environmental issues, social justice issues, animal rights, and veganism. I advocate for all of these things. I try to bring all these things together, so people can see that it’s really a whole with the end result hopefully being a more peaceful and compassionate world.

We would like to convey our appreciation to Harold Brown for sharing his life story with us and others. May Harold Brown’s work and the initiatives of like-minded people promoting the protection of animals soon change hearts so that all embrace the organic vegan diet.

For more details on Farm Kind, please visit

To learn more about “Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home,” please visit

Benevolent viewers, we enjoyed your company today on Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Please join us again tomorrow for the second and final part of our interview with Harold Brown. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May we always take deep care of our animal friends and our awe-inspiring world.

Do you know why it is not easy for people to quit eating meat, cheese, and refined sugars?

They’re eating a diet with so much processed foods and so many animal products, and so much sugar, and so much salt, and so much soda drinks.

They keep craving to eat more food because you become addicted, you become a food addict.

Please join us for “Understanding the Cravings: Food Addiction” Monday, March 22 on Healthy Living.