The Farm

2008 California Country Hoe Down
May 3, 2008

Speakers

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Gene Baur, Farm Sanctuary's co-founder and president, has conducted hundreds of visits to farms, stockyards and slaughterhouses to document conditions, and his pictures and videotape, exposing factory farming cruelty, have been aired nationally and internationally, educating millions. He has testified in court and before local, state and federal legislative bodies, and has initiated groundbreaking legal enforcement and legislative action to raise awareness and prevent factory farming abuses. He played a significant role in passing the first U.S. laws to prohibit cruel farming systems-including the Florida ban on gestation crates, the Arizona ban on veal and gestation crates, and the California and Chicago bans on foie gras. His efforts have been covered by leading news organizations, including the New York Times, The Larry King Show, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Public Radio, ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN. His book, entitled Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds about Animals and Food, was published by Touchstone (a division of Simon & Schuster) in March 2008.

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, long-time vegan and animal activist, founded Compassionate Cooks to empower people to make informed food choices and to debunk the myths about veganism and animal rights. She does this through vegan cooking classes, articles and essays, lectures and workshops, her popular "Food for Thought" podcast and blog, a first-of-its-kind cooking DVD, and her new cookbook, The Joy of Vegan Baking: Compassionate Cooks' Traditional Treats & Sinful Sweets. Colleen has appeared on the Food Network and is a columnist for VegNews Magazine and a contributor to KQED radio.

Mark Hawthorne is the author of Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism. He gave up meat after an encounter with one of India's many cows in 1992, then went vegan a decade later upon visiting Animal Place, an education center and sanctuary for farmed animals near his home in northern California. Beginning in 2004, Mark served as a contributing writer for Satya magazine and he is a frequent contributor to VegNews. His writing has also appeared in Vegan Voice, Herbivore, Hinduism Today, Utne.com and newspapers across the U.S. Mark shares his vegetable crisper with five rabbits rescued by SaveABunny, which works with San Francisco Bay Area animal shelters to find loving homes for rabbits.

Jennifer Hillman is the Director of Ballot Issue Campaigns for The Humane Society of the United States. A long-time political activist, she began her career in 1991 as the Grassroots Canvass Director in Seattle for Greenpeace Action and as the National Canvass Director for Greenpeace USA. After leaving Greenpeace, Jennifer served on the Board of Directors and then as the Advocacy Director for the Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS). At PAWS she began her experience as a state lobbyist and worked with both The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and Animal Protection Institute (API) to lobby several state bills including a ban on exotic pet ownership and the protection of citizen's initiatives banning trapping and hound hunting of cougars. In 2005, Jennifer became the Deputy Director of Ballot Issue Campaigns for HSUS and worked on the successful passage in the 2006 election of initiatives in both Arizona (banning gestation and veal crates) and Michigan (banning the hunting of mourning doves). As Director of Ballot Campaigns for HSUS, she is now working on a statewide citizen initiative for the 2008 November election in California that would ban gestation crates, veal crates and battery cages. She lives in Seattle with her 4 cats.

Julie Janovsky is Farm Sanctuary's director of campaigns and leads the organization's efforts to eliminate intensive confinement systems for pigs, calves and chickens, end the torturous production of foie gras, stop the suffering of downed animals and expose the factory farming dairy industry. She has drafted legislation and model bills, and lobbied for the passage of bills across the country to help protect animals. She continues to work toward the inclusion of animal concerns in federal and state policy as well as building on the ground campaigns to engage animal advocates and other members of society to take action for animals. Prior to Farm Sanctuary, Julie worked at The Humane Society of the United States building state legislative efforts and relationships across the country, and also served as government relations associate for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, where she headed animal protection legislative efforts and U.S. campaigns on wildlife trade, big cats and polar bears. Julie first came to Washington D.C. as a legislative aide for former Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.).