A British family farm have highlighted how they could lose their reputation 'in the click of a finger' after being mistaken for a US farm currently embroiled in a row surrounding animal welfare.
Fair Oaks Farms, a dairy farm in Indiana, has recently made international headlines over an animal abuse scandal.
Footage leaked last week by animal rights group Animal Recovery Mission (ARM) shows workers beating calves and force-feeding them.
An undercover worker gained employment on the farm from August to November last year.
But some social media users have misdirected their anger at a small family-run farm in East Sussex which has the same name.
Fair Oaks Farms, located in Mayfield, has received hundreds of death threats on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
The award-winning farm has been inundated with threatening private messages, as well as reviewers purposely leaving one star reviews.
Ian Ledger, who runs Fair Oak Farm, told The Daily Telegraph that the farm is only a 'little family business'.
“One person wrote 'We're coming for your throats'. My biggest worry is that, in the click of a finger, we will lose our reputation,” he told the paper.
“We're a little family business and have built it up ourselves but it could be lost overnight.
“We're getting really serious death threats. This is a sign of the times and how easy it is for people to just send a death threat having read a post and not knowing the facts.”
Mr Ledger added: “You can see it's mainly keyboard warriors but some messages are very serious.”
Fair Oak Farm offers visitors a countryside retreat on it 12-acre estate in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It also keeps a variety of rare breed animals.
