Farmer Sends Cows to Sanctuary; Grows Vegetables Instead

English farmer Jay Wilde recently donated 63 cows to the Hillside Animal Sanctuary to save them from slaughter. Wilde inherited the farm—which then produced dairy products—after his father died in 2011, then switched to producing organic beef, feeling the dairy industry was egregiously cruel. Wilde—a vegetarian for 25 years—decided to take animals out of his business entirely this year because he “couldn’t believe it was right to eat them.” Now, Wilde plans to raise organic vegetables on his land without the use of animal products or fertilizers. “Cows have good memories and a range of emotions. They form relationships. I’ve even seen them cry,” Wilde told BBC News. “It was very difficult to do [my] best to look after them and then send them to the slaughterhouse for what must be a terrifying death.” Similarly, in 2015, Carol and Julian Pierce turned their former goat cheese farm—Soledad Goats in Mojave, CA—into an animal sanctuary and vegan company, focusing on cashew cheese production.