We members of the agricultural industry deserve to have our voices heard too

Farming hasn't been under attack from so many fronts since World War One. Joaquin Phoenix is the latest vegan crusader to have preached his eco agenda on a populist platform, using his Oscars acceptance speech to make his case against dairy. It was snappy, emotive and ultimately simplistic.

And herein lies the problem. Seldom do members of the agricultural industry get the chance to argue back. This week, though, the National Farmers’ Union president Minette Batters spoke out against Phoenix, stating: "There are people at the end of this. There are small family farms and they get hurt too."

Batters insists that the vegan movement does "enormous damage to the mental health of livestock farmers". As a farmer myself, I can sympathise. Of course, animal rights groups were quick to condemn her, pointing to a lack of evidence that their campaigning was causing psychological distress in our community. How would they know? We may be a thorn in the side of their belief system, but we deserve a platform too.

So often the debate comes down to climate change, which some frame as an incipient catastrophe, when really it is much more complicated than most realise. There are so many glaring contradictions when we look at topics like diet, pollution, packaging and recycling that the temptation is to simplify.