Community
Print
A sixth-generation cattle rancher has broken a ‘100 year family tradition’ after pledging to shift to plant-based farming.
Richard Traylor and his wife Cindy say they’re currently researching into sustainable agriculture, with hopes to grow plant-based products such as broccoli and radishes instead of raising cattle for slaughter.
The couple recently featured on the Rancher Advocacy Program’s live summit created by Renne King-Sonnen – who went vegan and ‘decided she was unwilling to participate in her husband multi-generational cattle business’.
Kin-Sonnen is now the founder of Rowdy Girl Sanctuary, which cares for cows who have been spared from slaughter.
A ‘180-degree turn’
“I am so honored, humbled, and grateful that the Traylor’s have gone totally vegan,” the sanctuary wrote on Facebook. “They made the 180-degree turn and are doing the unthinkable – they’ve become vegan!
“They’ve ended the normalized violence of animal ag and are looking for new and innovative ways to use their land.
“I remember sitting in their kitchen and hearing Richard say that he felt like a murderer when he took his cows to the sale barn – that he knew something wasn’t right but he was just doing what his family before him had always done, and of course if you are going to keep your animal ag exemption then you gotta farm animals or grow crops to feed them – it’s really messed up.”
‘I needed to walk the walk’
Speaking about his decision to stop raising cattle, Richard told VegNews: “I couldn’t be a rancher and environmentalist without being a hypocrite. I needed to walk the walk.
“You’re killing the planet and killing yourself.”
You can learn more about the Rancher Advocacy Program here
