I interviewed Gene Baur, President and Co-Founder of Farm Sanctuary, during one of the stops of his book tour, promoting his book "Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food" (Buy Direct). Farm Sanctuary operates two shelters for farmed animals, one in New York and one in California. The organization also promotes veganism and advocates for farmed animals.
You mentioned growing up with a cat, and then becoming desensitized to animals. But then in 1985, you went vegan. What caused you to go vegan?
There were a variety of different circumstances over the years. I grew up with a cat named Tiger, and grew up seeing animals in the hills and having awe about animals. I think most children have a sensitivity towards animals, and I did. But around me, that was not nurtured. That was not promoted. I was being fed meat and I was eating meat and wasn’t really thinking about it. So I just sort of adopted the habits that others around me adopted, of eating animal products without thinking very much. But there were a lot of problems around the world that I was noticing. I didn’t want to just be a cog in the wheel. I didn’t want to contribute to so many of the problems around me. As time went, I learned about what happens to animals on factory farms and I stopped eating veal in high school when my grandmother told me how veal calves are raised. I remember one time coming home, and my mother had made a chicken dinner, and I saw this chicken on the plate. The full body, with the legs and wings, and I stopped eating meat for a while after that. My feelings about not eating animals were not reinforced, and everyone around me was eating animal products and I fell back into the habit.
But then I hitchhiked around the country and learned what happens to animals. I visited some farming areas, heard about the environmental consequences of animal agriculture, and all those things together, along with my memories of animals as a child and of that chicken on the plate, all those things kind of added up and I decided to stop eating animals in 1985. And I went vegan pretty much right after I went vegetarian because it was all connected. You know, killing animals for meat or exploiting them and having them killed after they produce milk or eggs was pretty much the same in my mind. So I went vegan and wanted to do something to combat this problem, to raise awareness of this problem and to make change, and so Farm Sanctuary was founded in 1986 and at the time we wanted to go into these places, document conditions, so we could expose them. We would find living animals left for dead, and that’s how the sanctuaries began.
During the reading. Baur talked about starting Farm Sanctuary at a tofu farm in Pennsylvania before they moved their operations to Watkins Glen, NY. In the early days of the organization, Baur also sold veggie hot dogs at Grateful Dead shows to raise money.
You used to live on a tofu farm. Were you making tofu?
A farmer who was sympathetic to our work was in the tofu business and he made tofu, and he let us use his land, but I never made tofu, and no one in the organization ever made tofu. We did sell veggie hot dogs, but we bought the veggie hot dogs and went on the road and sold them. But we never actually manufactured the products.
