In the film The Vegan Livestock Farmer, renowned photographer and documentary maker Kadir van Lohuizen follows Limburg poultry farmer Ruud Zanders.
After the bankruptcy of his large-scale poultry farms, Ruud started a smaller-scale and more sustainable business. This new concept, Kipster, has since gained worldwide attention and is on the eve of an international breakthrough. But meanwhile, the livestock farmer himself increasingly questions why we keep animals for food. He now avoids meat, dairy and eggs as much as possible for his own consumption. Do we really need animals in the global food system?
Filmmaker Kadir van Lohuizen meticulously captures the internal struggles between ideals versus practice within his framework. Are you doing well enough if you’ve developed the best possible chicken barn for animal welfare and circularity? Or are you actually maintaining the system? What do activist George Monbiot and scientist Imke de Boer think of Ruud’s quest? And where do you stand yourself?
The film was commissioned by The Food Revolution Foundation, with support from among others the Barth-Misset Fund. The tour is made possible in part by the province of Limburg, Triodos Foundation and Symbio Foundation.
The screening and aftertalk with Ruud Zanders are in English.
