Another dead animal in the arable crop.

I found this worm today, dead among the clods and sods of the freshly cultivated arable land. One of countless millions. It's only a worm,....but it's still an animal.

Veggie propaganda for children

One message I've been getting loud and clear from many vegans/vegetarians since I started this little project (and we will be out in the arable fields soon, the weather forecasters assure us) is that v/vs would never use the 'Meat eaters kill animals - we don't' argument.

So this snippet from a school textbook that my 8-year-old was using makes interesting reading.

The carnage of ploughing

Ploughing the field, making it ready for a new crop. The gulls are feasting on worms, snails, slugs and small rodents that have had their homes destroyed as the whole top layer of soil is violently inverted.

Introduction

The very rock of the Moral High Ground occupied by the vegetarian/vegan movement is the claim that their diet doesn't kill animals. From this rock they abuse, shriek, and (without even the teeniest weeniest grasp of irony) make death threats.

We who grow wheat (which is used to make the bread that is proudly labelled as 'suitable for vegans') know the awkward truth. We know that wheat growing is a gruesome and bloody business. Countless thousands of animals die in the course of the arable year. From the very first cultivations to the act of combining, then right on through the cleaning, drying and processing of grain, animals die.

Some of them are cuddy, some of them aren't - see in the main picture the poor slugs dying a slow horrible death by dehydration from ingesting metaldehyde. (Their crime? Eating seed wheat.) But 'cuddliness' shouldn't be a factor for the animals right activists. They should be campaigning to save ALL the animals: the slugs, snails, rats, rabbits, hares, moles, seagulls (I ploughed one in once), the weevils, the aphids, the midges, the spiders...the list is endless. One of the most famous books about farming - written by a famous ecologist - is called 'The Worm Forgives The Plough'.

They should be working hard to ban bread, because more animals die to make the bread in your beef sandwich than die to make the beef.

The mission of this blog is to record, during the arable year, as much of a list as possible, with photographs and a description of the death, of the animals that have died to make wheat. The animals that are dead for your bread.