A Northern Irish transport firm has removed adverts promoting veganism after local farmers feared they 'wrongly demonised' the industry.
The ads encouraged people to adopt a plant-based diet, and appeared on Translink's fleet, which includes school buses, in Northern Ireland.
An advert on the Translink Foyle Ulsterbus read: ‘It’s not a personal choice when someone is killed, use plants not animals’.
But such posters have the 'potential to do serious damage' to the local agriculture industry and farmers' livelihoods, the Ulster Farmers' Union (UFU) said.
The group has been contacted by a number of its farmer members, who said the vegan campaign 'wrongly demonised' the livestock sector.
The union's president Ivor Ferguson said: “Our members, many of whom rely on the transportation service of Translink in rural areas and whose children take their buses to school, are outraged by the vegan adverts.
“A public service should be impartial on all matters but the vegan adverts on the Translink buses uses emotive language that singles out our local farmers.
“Translink’s adverts dismiss the facts, helping to perpetuate a negative narrative about eating meat and consuming dairy products.”
Mr Ferguson added: “We respect all personal decisions when it comes to diets but to demonise the livestock industry to promote another industry is wrong.
“Translink’s vegan adverts wrongly links agriculture to plant-based diets and the language is attempting to influence the general public to isolate the farming community through misinformation.”
Following the criticism, Translink issued a statement on Saturday (18 January): “These bus-side advertisements are in the process of being removed.”
The company added that a third-party 'media specialist' handled the advertisements.
Go Vegan World, the organisation behind the ads, said it is 'not opposed to farmers, but their use of other animals as commodities for profit.'
The group's director Sandra Higgins said: “We see this objection to our ads as an indication that people are uncomfortable about earning a living from exploiting defenceless animals.”
Figures show the Northern Irish agri-food industry turns over £4.5 billion annually, supporting one in every eight jobs in the UK.
It comes as Bus Éireann removed vegan advertisements from their buses in the Republic of Ireland after receiving a high volume of concerns.
