The Australian campaign group Ban Live Exports have catalogued a raft of severe animal welfare abuses. To western eyes these might seem exceptionally brutal but the fact is that in any intensive system once animals draw near their slaughter date cruelty rachets up.

In many parts of the world incomes are increasing and ever more people are moving into cities. Lifestyles are changing. And so are diets.

Two new leaders of the first and third largest Christian churches: Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis, and Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury. A...

News of the thousands of sheep that were lost in last week's snow drifts has given us an insight into sheep farming. Warnings were issued several days...

If we are concerned about the over-use of antibiotics in human medicine then alarm bells should sound louder still when it comes to their use in intensive farming.

With all the furore surrounding the horse meat scandal it seems there is no better time the current advertising campaign promoting the new Linda McCartney range. But will it work?

In trawling nets, fish are trapped with rocks, debris and other sea life and dragged along the bottom of the sea for hours. Surely, in these circumstances, they must suffer fear, pain and stress?

Thanks to the horse meat scandal tons of processed meat products are being removed from supermarket cabinets. The waste is huge. But the meat industry usually strives to avoid waste. Any part of an animal that can possibly be used for human consumption is made fit to eat, right down to the stripping of bones.

The 'horsegate' story is set to run and run. It gives me no pleasure to say 'told you so' but I've argued for years that the industrialisation of agriculture, in order to get the cheapest food, results in ever lower quality standards.

Fighting bulls are selected for their aggressive spirit. Like racehorses bred for the track they are highly prized and their welfare is paramount. Beef cattle, on the other hand, are bred and reared purely for meat. Only a very small proportion are kept for breeding - nearly all bull calves are castrated.

When our backs are against the wall, our fear and anxiety, our terrified, panic-stricken reaction, are just the same. How must animals feel when they are rounded up for slaughter and rushed up ramps onto lorries?

There are several types of vegetarian. Lacto-vegetarians eat dairy products but not eggs. Ovo-vegetarians eat eggs but not dairy products. Ovo-lacto-vegetarians eat eggs and dairy. But vegetarians who have chosen to forego meat in order to avoid the killing of animals may find that they are.

Quail for Christmas? Recipes are plentiful. These birds are the smallest European game bird. But those for the table have never been wild and they have not been shot for sport. Rather they are - as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has described them - factory farming's most recent and smallest victims.

Every day, all over the world, animals arrive at slaughterhouses by the truck, train and ship load - around 65 billion every year. That number is predicted to double by 2050.

Factory farming is all about maximising profit to produce cheap food - hence the breeding of animals that have become grotesque parodies of their natural selves: malformed mutants, pushed to the limits. This is farming on a vastly cruel scale, the profit motive overwhelming any meaningful consideration of animal welfare.

The unpalatable truth is that the overwhelming majority of the animals used for food are reared intensively, that is, on an industrial scale, on farms that are of an entirely different type than those that belong to farmers who welcome school children.

Supermarkets. The smell of baking bread; bright, welcoming lights; aisles piled high with jars, tins and attractive packages. Labels suggesting quality entice and reassure. But there is duplicity at hand.

Humans are the only species that drinks milk from another animal or that drink milk throughout adulthood. Supermarkets are abundant with milk products - like cheese, yoghurts, cream. Yet the health benefits are questionable: saturated fats; hormones; overly rich in protein; and implicated as a cause of testicular, breast and prostate cancer and heart disease.

When farming is on an industrial scale every aspect of the animals' lives is controlled. They do not choose their surroundings. Or the animals they mix with. Or what they eat. Or when they eat. Or when they mate. Or, in the case of artificial insemination, whether they mate.

Now here is the question. Would you eat living flesh if it were exactly like the meat you currently buy, the only difference being that it did not come from what was once a living animal?

Just mention the word vegan or vegetarian and the insults fly. Vegetabilists, plant nazis, salad munchers, eco-warriors, hippy dippy morons, bunny huggers. hese from the meatarians - is that an insult or a proudly worn moniker? Carnivores versus Vegans. Light the blue touchpaper. You could start a riot! Why such outrage?

The double standard - one law for pets, another for farm animals - invites the question; do we have any moral obligation to the animals we use for food?

Traditional farms are arranged to suit the animals. Now animals are selectively bred to suit intensive production. They must grow large as quickly as possible and be as productive as possible. Sows have litters of up to 15 piglets even though they have only 12 teats. Hens lay up to 300 eggs a year - 30 is a natural number.

In the countryside the fields burgeon with pasture and crops. But where are the animals? See the industrial-sized buildings in this agricultural landscape? The lack of life on the outside belies the fact that inside are living beings, crammed together in vast numbers, fed and watered by automation. For them - unlike the fields outside - there is nothing natural.