Animal rights activists in Scotland have been accused of launching an attempt to “ravage personal freedom” after they demanded that the Royal Highland Show goes vegan.
PETA is demanding the prestigious event, one of Europe’s largest celebrations of agriculture held outside Edinburgh, only promotes plant-based produce.
More than 4,500 animal are exhibited at the event every year, but the group condemned the “outdated parades, cruel sheep shearing, and food cut or expelled from an animal’s body”.
Writing to the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, PETA’s vice-president Dawn Carr suggested the event be renamed the “Royal Highland Grow”.
“The new Royal Highland Grow can celebrate Scotland’s hard-working plant-based farmers and delicious, locally produced vegan fare” she added.
“We all know raising and killing animals for food is not in their best interests.”
Rural campaign group the Countryside Alliance has hit back against the demands, pointing out that 86% of Scotland’s agricultural land is ‘less favourable’, meaning it is only suitable for livestock farming and, sparsely, harvestable animal fodder.
Such land cannot be given over to arable farming because the crops will not grow.
Mo Metcalf-Fisher, as spokesman for the alliance said PETA were "notorious attention seekers".
"While any event may wish to offer a range of catering options, including vegetarian and plant-based, no one should be limiting the dietary preferences of the vast bulk of the UK population or browbeaten into removing it.
"Red meat produced in Britain is among the most sustainable in the world”.
He added: “Ruling out livestock farming would not only remove several major food sources and ravage personal freedom, but would blight Scottish agriculture and its dependents as a whole”.
The Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland has been approached for comment.
