Rameet Chawla, Farmer

Can you tell me a little bit about your role as a farmer. What exactly do you do? Do you own land or animals?

I own a 300 acre piece of land in Upstate New York and it has a 5 acre biodynamic farm on it and what we do primarily is bring people up from the city and give them a down to the earth farming experience. We also have a restaurant on the property so we do group harvests, and bring the food to the restaurant, the restaurant cooks all the food and serves it back to the guests.

How do you feel like farms can be more conscientious about the way they treat animals and do you think that’s a problem right now?

It definitely is a problem. I think the primary issue is the byproduct of the animal industry in agriculture, it’s one of the largest contributors to climate change. So not only is animal cruelty an issue but also the way we’re raising animals is unfortunate. 

And how do you promote this at your farm?

We do one hour sessions with the groups of people who come and bring up topics that are typically taboo and try to educate the people about things nobody talks about.

And how do you feel when people are shopping at the grocery store, they can make decisions that are in favor of anti-animal cruelty?

So the first step is knowledge. What we aim to do is to close the knowledge gap so that people know how to buy, where to buy. 

IG: @rameet