PETA has written an open letter to LEGO urging the company to modify its farm animal toys. PETA claims that because real farm animals are “blood soaked” and connected to slaughter, the toy firm is creating a false impression of rural life. NOW, PETA asks that LEGO “rebrand” its farmyard items and make them more realistic for children in order for them not to get the wrong idea about life on a farm, which is bloody and violent when compared with how LEGO depicts it in their toy scene.
According to PETA, LEGO should convert its farm animal products into animal sanctuaries, places where animals are protected and healed rather than bred for food and milk. The company claimed that an animal sanctuary would not deceive kids about the “horror and cruelty” of farming life.
Mimi Bekhechi, a representative of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), wrote a lengthy letter to Niels Christiansen, the CEO of LEGO Group. The disturbing letter stated that while LEGO farm animal products aren’t accurate representations of atrocities committed in farmyards and slaughterhouses across the United States and throughout the world, they are required to advertise like they are.
“Animal farming is a bloody, cruel business and, in 2022, no firm should be promoting it, especially to children,” the PETA representative said.
Bekhechi criticized the LEGO sets because they depict farm animals as passive and degraded beings enslaved to humans. He explained that the pastoral settings on farmland depicted in LEGO’s “pastoral scenes” are simply not accurate portrayals of how farmers treat their animals. Cows, chickens, and other farm creatures are forced to live in confined spaces every day they survive on the farm, according to Bekhechi.
Despite LEGO’s silence, Niel Shand, the president of the National Beef Association, gave his thoughts on the situation.
“This is a misleading message from Peta,” Shand said in a comment provided to the media. “We have a responsibility to teach children where their food comes from through farm toys.”
Other animal rights activists, on the other hand, say that children are being indoctrinated with false information about farms and farm life for animals. George Monbiot, an environmental advocate who authors columns in The Guardian daily newspaper, claims that youngsters are fed the “cozy story” of a pastoral lifestyle on an idyllic and peaceful farm. In fact, animals are killed for their flesh and by-products.
Monbiot wrote: “As young children, we are constantly exposed to benign visions of the livestock farm, which bear no relation to reality. The only farms most children are likely to visit are petting farms and play farms, which reinforce this cozy story.”
Do you believe PETA’s letter to LEGO will cause the toy firm to modify its farm animal toys? Will other companies react in the same way?
