 Pat Marsh and Erica North. Weekdays from 12. BBC Radio Kent. Right now it's breakfast on BBC Radio Kent with John and Anna, just approaching quarter to eight. Now there's no joke, it goes a little bit something like that, right. How do you know if someone is vegan? Wait for it, don't worry. They'll tell you. I don't know if I get enough abuse for talking about it on this show. New research shows that more than a quarter of all evening meals now in the UK are vegan or vegetarian. However, vegan activists are also making the news as well. And some people are asking are they going too far? We told you last week about the lobby in Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury to take pork items off their menu because they were showing pepper pig. Joey Carbstrong is an Australian celebrity vegan activist with tens of thousands of social media followers currently touring the UK in an order to spread the word about his plant-based lifestyle. He joins us in the studio. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Come a long way. Also on the line, we've got Frank Langrish, a sheep and cattle farmer from Rye who joins us live as well. Joey, I guess the question that I want to ask you to start is that whilst your message may be pure and well-intentioned, you're going to lose the argument, aren't you, if people start to get violent? It's supposed to be about compassion for animals. You've got to have compassion for people as well. Yeah, 100% and that's the approach I advocate for. If anyone's come to any of my advocacy workshops, it's promoting a peaceful, polite dialogue. Now, I haven't seen any evidence of violence from vegans, but if I do see any evidence of that, I'll publicly condemn that and I will sort of keep them in check. Obviously, this is a movement of peace. We just want peace for animals, peace for humans, peace for the world. Obviously, what's happening to animals is very horrific and I cannot control everyone within a movement, but obviously, what I promote is online for everyone to see. Let's bring in Frank now, because Frank, I understand that you have actually suffered some intimidation from vegetarians and vegans. Good morning Anna. Yes, well, I'm not sure where Joey gets his information from. I think he was the originator of this group called SAVE and we have a very nice little rural abattoir of which there are very, very few left these days, which we use and once a month, quite a large number of his supporters come along and obstruct the abattoir. They abuse the farmers and a lot of these farmers are quite small farmers who bring their stock to this nice, pleasant little abattoir and also the owners of the abattoir, their children have been threatened by people from the vegan movement threatening to murder the children and it's generally extremely unpleasant. Do you want to think about this, Joey? Excuse, if anyone's threatening to murder children, you need to take that up with the police, not just make claims over the radio, because that is a very heavy claim you're making right there and to say that I founded the SAVE movement isn't true either, so I do your research as well. I'm just a part of the SAVE movement. I didn't found it. Also, if anyone's being abusive through the SAVE movement, you need to get in contact with the police as well because that is not part of the guidelines of the SAVE movement. So you're making very strong claims here and I'm wondering why you decided to make these claims on the radio and not go through the normal processes. These claims have been investigated by the police and in fact, unfortunately, four police have to turn up every time these people come there to try to control order. The avatar owners also have to pay for private security as well, which puts a further cost on the killing of the owls. This is completely unnecessary. As a producer of high quality meat, I don't go around threatening health food shops to say you must eat my meat. The fact that you think you can get away with threatening people because you're a vegetarian or a vegan is completely out of order. Excuse me, that's a straw man. I never threatened anyone to get them to stop eating meat. I do polite, respectful dialogue and if there is anyone making threats, you need to take that up with the authorities. Now, if they haven't arrested anyone because of these claims, then I would say there's no evidence for those claims. Now, if you're making claims without evidence, that's pretty heavy too, so I'd be very careful about that. Joey, can I just ask, if you are part of this movement, I know you say you didn't found it, but can't you do something to stop this happening? If it is happening, I mean, we just got one person who works in an abattoir here making a claim. Joey, do you? That's not true at all. The farmers are threatened when they arrive with their livestock. Joey, I wanted to ask, Joey, would you support people turning up to abattoirs to demonstrate against the meat trade? If it's peaceful protest, it's got to be intimidating. If you're there with animals, it's got to be intimidating. How is it intimidating to stand there with a sign saying we're here for two minutes with each truck to see the animals? All we do is have a photo with the animals, show our respect to the animals. It's called bearing witness where we witness the animals before they go in to get killed and it's a completely peaceful movement. The safe movement guidelines are peaceful. Isn't it a bit like standing outside an abortion clinic saying save the babies? A bit like standing outside the abortion clinic. Animals are completely innocent and they're being killed for an unjustifiable reason so people can have some meat in their sandwich when we don't need to for health or for survival. So these animals do not have a choice in this and all we're doing is standing there and respectfully asking people to make better choices that don't involve victims. Can I just change the subject slightly here? Because what I'd really like to know, I keep quite a lot of animals and I have lots of pasture land. In fact if you look at the wheeled of Kent and Sussex it was all created by livestock over the years. Pigs and sheep and cattle and all the hedgerows we have are all through the enclosures for keeping of animals. Now I've got pastures that are hundreds of years old that have been grazed by animals. We pride ourselves on producing grass-fed animals. But what I'd want to know from Joey is if I can't keep an animal anymore, what crops do I grow so I can keep his vegan lifestyle to what he wants me to have? So you want me to come up with a solution to transform your farm that kills animals for profit into something more ethical? You want me to write you out a diagram? I want you to tell me what crops I need to grow, yes. I'd rather so that is not for me to do for you. What I'm here to do is speak up for animals who are going to a slaughterhouse for your benefit. No, no, no. You've got to have an alternative, surely. I do. I'm going to have that solution. Let me ask you this. Do you think it's justified to put these innocent animals into a slaughterhouse so you get some money in your pocket? Now my tip isn't really with farmers, you're supplying a demand. The consumers want to eat animal flesh, so you're just basically producing what the consumer wants. I understand that they keep putting me up against farmers, like I've got some problem with farmers, which couldn't be further from the truth. I understand supply and demand chain. Now for me, to you to say, hey Joey, I want you to come up with a solution to transform all of our animal farms into to grow ethical plants, I don't have that solution for you. But I'm here to tell you that it's unjustified to put animals in slaughterhouses and we need to grow crops. You can't just say, well you can't keep animals anymore because that's not ethically correct. The fact is that the mistil by far the majority of people are meat eaters, most human beings are actually omnivores. Yeah, that's a problem. But you can't come up with a suggestion to tell me what it would be, what crops I could grow. Unless I know that. Now I've done a little research on this and it would appear that vegans seem to eat a lot of soya, they eat almond oil and all sorts of things like that. None of which I can grow on my farm. Joey, what I would have put you is that some of the language you used is very upsetting to some people. You do use very strong language when you're criticising meat eaters. Therefore, isn't that in a way encouraging people to be violent? Could you be specific about the language? Well, holocaust for instance. I've used that to the term. I have used that earlier on in my advocacy. Now holocaust means holocaust means destruction or slaughter on a mass scale. If you look up the terminology, it is the correct word to describe. I'm not saying it's the wrong word. I'm just saying it is very inflammatory language and therefore aren't you by implication suggesting people become violent? That is a ridiculous claim my friend. How is me describing what happens to animals in any way, asking for violence from people. I'm saying animals are being killed to the tune of three trillion a year nearly. Animals are being stabbed to death in slaughterhouses for an unjustifiable reason. Animals are murdered against their will. How am I telling people to be violent? Well, you're not specifically telling them to be violent. What I'm suggesting is the language you are using, if somebody was a vegan, they could listen to you and think that they've got to do something more than just be a vegan. But Joey's saying it's anti-violence. He's saying it's anti-violence. He doesn't want this to happen. Can I please say something? If I was speaking up for those dogs in Newland China who were caged, boiled alive, having their paws chopped off and I said they're murdering those dogs, this is unjustified. We don't need to eat dogs to survive. Would you be coming at me and saying, hey, you're insinuating, you're creating violence? Yeah, you're right. With dogs because they're our pets in Britain, we don't look at them. Well, that's right. What's the difference, my friend? Well, nothing to you. I can stand up for dogs, right, but I can't stand up for cows, chickens, pigs, lambs and fish. Yeah, basically. Of course you can. What is the moral difference between a dog and a lamb? Well, in your view, what is the difference? Well, I'm looking at two of my sheep dogs at the moment. My sheep dogs, actually, they have the very control of all they can do anything like a lamb. Yes, it has feelings in that, but it doesn't have the brain power to actually know. I don't have a lot of brain power. Oh, my God. So you were saying intelligence determines moral value. So if someone's less intelligent than another person, they have less moral value. You're saying because a sheep is as intelligent as your dog, which sheep and cows and pigs are very intelligent. Pigs are, in fact, scientifically proven to be more intelligent than dogs. So if you're saying intelligence determines moral value, why are we lowering pigs into a gas chamber for a bacon sandwich? By your logic, we should be lowering dogs down into a gas chamber because they're less intelligent than pigs. There's no logic in this. I don't see your argument. We don't eat dogs in this country. And we're not going to start eating dogs in this country, are we? Okay, we're going to have to take the last words from all of you. It's the last word from you, please, Frank. Well, I think this becomes such an emotive subject from him. This is a single issue. And one piece of information I did read on my small amount of research is that a lot of vegans, because of the diet they eat and the lack of dairy products, they can become very short of iodine. And iodine can cause a very old fashioned disease called cretinism, which I think probably sums him up quite well. I'm sorry, my friend. Can I take your response to that, please, Jerry? You need to provide evidence for your claim saying vegans want to murder children. That is a very strong claim. And you would want to make sure you have evidence for that. It is unjustified to stab innocent animals to death for an unnecessary reason, just like it's unjustified for them to do what they do to dogs in Newland. Okay, that's the last word from both. I'm sure lots of my listeners would want to call me a quitting, actually. That happens on a day you think. I don't name call. I don't name call. I love you, mate. Catch ya. Okay, thank you both. Joey Carbstrong and Frank Langrish. Debating the issues here now, it's over to you. Where do you stand on this? We had the vegan. We had the farmer. What's your opinions? 0345981111. Please get in touch with us this morning. Very good stuff. It's three minutes to eight.