In April 1996, at the height of the mad cow disaster in Europe, a former U.S. cattle industry insider appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show and shocked the talk-show diva into swearing she would never eat a hamburger again. For that public act of "food disparagement," Winfrey and her informer, Howard Lyman, aka The Mad Cowboy, were sued for "food slander" by Texas cattlemen – unsuccessfully. 

Today Lyman, a vegan, is still a leading food-reform activist – a fourth generation Montana cattle rancher who sold the family mega-farm twenty years ago (converting some of it to an animal sanctuary) to embark on a public consciousness-raising mission that has included stints as a Capitol Hill lobbyist for the National Farmers Union, President of the International Vegetarian Union, director and spokesman for the Humane Society of the United States's "Eating with Conscience" campaign, and a prized speaker on the vegetarian and animal rights circuit. Aquarian Editor Syd Baumel spoke to Lyman this July from his home in Alexandria, Virginia.

HOWARD LYMAN: What we’re doing today is nonsustainable. We’re basically ruining the environment, destroying the water, and all of this with the unbelievable characterization that we’re trying to feed a hungry world. And that's just not true.

Do you think sustainable agriculture could feed a hungry world?

Absolutely. There’s no doubt about it. Once you rebuild the soil, sustainable agriculture could feed the world.

How do people’s eating habits have to change as well as our farming practices?

Well, there’s enough food produced in the world today to feed every living human on the planet – which is over six billion – if we quit feeding our food to livestock. For example, it takes 16 pounds of grain to put a pound of meat on your plate. Sixteen pounds of grain will feed 32 humans. If we look at our digestive system, we look at our teeth, we are basically herbivores; and the minute we go and start increasing the amount of animal products in our diet, we immediately start shortening our lifespan. We have about 1.25 billion people on the planet today that are going to bed hungry. We also have 1.25 billion people that are going to bed at night overweight and obese. We can feed the world’s population, but not by using the amount of our food that is being fed to livestock.

Do you think that BSE [bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease] is as big a risk as some people think it is, or is it more the tip of the iceberg in terms of E. coli and other risks associated with this kind of farming?

I think it’s a lot bigger problem. If you look at the similarity between symptoms of Alzheimer's and CJD [Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease – the human cousin of BSE, a variant of which is caused by eating meat from BSE-infected cattle], they are very, very similar. How many cases of Alzheimer's do we have in North America today that are really not Alzheimer's, but are CJD? Every study that I have seen – whether it was the Pittsburgh Veterans Study or the study that was done in Yale University – showed that misdiagnosis [of CJD as Alzheimer's] was anywhere from 5 to 13 percent. If we look at the number of people that have what they're calling Alzheimer's today in North America, we have a probability of a magnitude [of CJD] that no one wants to face up to. And remember every person that has a human form of mad cow disease will die from it. It is terminal. [Editor's note: To what extent, if any, such extra cases of CJD could be caused by BSE-tainted beef is unknown.]

What do you think about the current push by Monsanto to introduce genetically modified wheat to the North American market?

Well, I think it’s going to be the kiss of death. The Europeans now have almost totally quit buying North American soybeans because of GMOs [genetically modified organisms, including plants]. They’re gonna do exactly the same thing to the wheat and barley crops. This is absolute corporate greed at its worst, which is short-term profits and to hell with the environment, don’t worry about the future, just fill my quarterly report of income and to hell with everything else.

You must have a great sense of identification with and sympathy for farmers. When you hear about the farmers being devastated by this BSE scare in Canada right now and the businesses going down the drain or sorely threatened, what would you say to a farmer in that situation who says "Well, what am I supposed to do? What can I do? What are my options if I want to be like Howard Lyman and do the right thing?"

Well the first thing that I would say to them is go to a library and start arming themselves with facts. The biggest problem that we have in agriculture today is that farmers are being inundated with public relations which they believe to be true, which in many cases are not. Get yourself informed about what is going on. The second thing is ask yourself what has been effective in other parts of the world. Japan right now has the biggest impact on what is happening to Canadian beef than any other place in the world. Japan had some cases of mad cow disease themselves. What did they do about it? Well they went out and tested every animal that goes to slaughter for mad cow disease. Has Canada done that? The European Union? They ended up with mad cow disease. And what did they do? They went and tested every mature animal for mad cow disease. Is Canada doing that? No.

The overwhelming majority of profits made in agriculture today are being achieved by the sectors that are growing food for people – that are feeding people, not animals. If I’m in agriculture – and there’s nobody in the world that loves a farmer more than I do, because I understand how hard they work, I know how difficult their lives are – if I’m a farmer out there right now, I’m going to look at how in the world do I produce a product and control it until I sell it to the consumer. If I’m going to maximize my income, that’s exactly what I want to do. Rather than having hundreds of thousands of acres losing money, some of the most profitable things I’ve ever seen in my life are five-acre vegetable gardens that are growing vegetables for people. 

So I would say to farmers that are out there today: Figure out a way, with the tools that you have, of producing food for humans – controlling it – whether it is individually, or by cooperative, or whatever mechanism you can – controlling that product until you sell it to the consumer. Growing grain and stuffing it down the throat of an animal so that you can sell the animal to a multinational corporation below what it costs you to produce it, to me is suicidal.

Why are so many farmers doing that?

Because that’s what we’re used to. I went down that path. I ended up with a degree in agriculture, and never one time when I was at the university did I ever take a class in organic farming, did I ever end up with somebody in agricultural economics that stood in front of me and talked about a farmers' market, that talked to me about forming a co-op. It was all about "how do you go out and grow more bushels, more pounds, use more chemicals." We are inundated with the brainwashing of an entire industry. I was there, I was part of it, and I thought the answer was "get bigger, or get out!" 

What’s the role of consumers in helping to spark this kind of renaissance?

It’s the most important thing, because as a consumer every time you reach into your pocket and you spend a dollar, you're voting on what kind of a future you want to live in. And so when I talk to consumers, I basically say to them: "Look, if you don’t like the way things are happening, go out and support the people that are trying to make a change. Go out and buy organically grown food, go out and buy a product that is energy efficient. If there are too many cars out there, then walk, ride a bicycle, or take a bus."

How hopeful are you about this kind of renaissance happening?

It's gonna happen. The majority of it's gonna happen in my lifetime. Never has a social movement in the history of the world moved as quickly as what we're seeing. Rachel Carson wrote the book Silent Spring which alerted the world, basically, to the problems associated with chemicals in 1962. I’m just absolutely amazed when you go into the schools today – the kids are light years ahead of their parents as far as environmental awareness. 

So do I feel that we’re going in the right direction? Absolutely. Would I like to see us go faster? You better believe it. But remember there is only one thing in the world that has ever changed human behaviour, and that is crisis. And "fortunately" we have a lot of politicians and bureaucrats that are helping us establish a crisis; and so I’m extremely happy about where we’re going. I just wish we could go faster.

What sorts of things is your organization Voice for a Viable Future doing?

What I try to do with Voice for a Viable Future, on my website, with my newsletter – I try to arm people with information, so they can make better choices. Do I think everybody’s going to turn out to be a flaming vegan by going to my website or reading my book? No. But I really do believe that people will make better choices when they are armed with the facts. And if somebody said to me, "All right wise guy, overnight we’ll allow you to turn one percent of all of the people on the planet Earth today into vegans or we’ll allow you to take 50 percent of all of the people on Planet Earth and have them consume 10 percent less animal products," I’d take those people reducing their consumption of animal products by 10 percent; because if you decide to change your diet by cutting back animal products by 10% because it's good for you, in the long run you’re a damn fool if you don’t go to 20, to 30, to 40, to 50. 

How motivating do you find it is for people to think in terms of not just "good for me," but also good for the animals, good for farmers, good for the environment, good for public health?

I think that each one of us has a reason that makes more sense to us. I don’t think it makes a lick of difference why you come to the issue, because when you do it for no matter which [reason], you help all of the others. Very seldom do you ever get the opportunity to go out and do one thing that's right and end up benefitting so many other areas. 

In the McLibel trial you testified that when you were a farmer, a rancher – I'm quoting: "I have been to hundreds of slaughterhouses, probably as many as 50 processing plants." And you said that "The animals are terrified at the slaughter plant, and the cruelty inflicted on the animal in their last moments on earth are indescribable. I believe if viewing of slaughter was required to eat meat, most folks would become vegetarians." And you also said that "the industry was very standard and there was not a whole lot of difference between any of them," referring to slaughterhouses and meatpacking places. Here in Canada, there's a tendency to think that when we read exposés about what goes on in slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants, like the one in The Washington Post awhile ago and the testimony by the fellow who works for Tyson in the South, "Oh, that’s the U.S. In Canada, we’re kinder and gentler and we have more inspections, and . . ."

Did you know that some of the Canadian slaughter facilities are owned by Americans? Do you think that as soon as those corporations cross the border all of a sudden they say, "Oops, we’re in Canada, we gotta be kinder and gentler."

Are they under any more regulations that would force them to become kinder and gentler?

No, I don’t think so. I’ve seen a lot of animals die. And I will tell you that once you go into a slaughter plant, once you see what is happening there, it’s branded on your soul. You are never gonna walk away from that again. I can tell you vividly the memories that I have of the looks of the animals at the time when they were killed. It was the macho thing back then [to think] "well, it’s all part of the business, it’s the way things have to go. We’ve got to feed a hungry world." But I will tell you as I’m talking to you today, the thing that gives me the greatest joy in the world is to be able to say to you that no animal has to die for me to live. I feel very, very strongly about that, that no animal out there is going to experience the terror and the devastation and the death of slaughter because it is called for for my lifestyle. I think about all of those animals that I was part of sending to death and I think that my gift to them today in retribution is the fact that never is another one going to have to die for my lifestyle. And when somebody tells me, "we end up treating the animals so much better," if slaughter was such a joy, and death was such a gift, then why don’t they go out and give it to themselves?

What I want to be able to do is talk to people about stopping and thinking and not doing some of the stupid things that I did, accepting things that are purely public relations as fact. I want people to realize that they are the captains of their own soul. And if they give me the greatest gift that they can ever give anybody, which is their time to hear what I have to say, I don't want to waste that. I want them to walk away and say "boy you know that's the craziest ex-farmer I ever heard in my life, but he really makes me stop and think." If I can be successful doing that, then my life is successful. And that's what I hope to be able to when I come to Winnipeg.