Gene Baur

Gene Baur
Occupation	Activist, author

Gene Baur (born 1962) is an author and activist in the animal rights and food movement. He’s been called the "conscience of the food movement" by Time Magazine, and opposes factory farming and advocates for what he believes would be a more just and respectful food system. Baur is president and co-founder of Farm Sanctuary, a farm animal protection organization. He is vegan and has been involved with animal rights since he co-founded Farm Sanctuary in 1986. Baur has authored two books and various articles, and is a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Baur grew up in Hollywood, California, and went to Loyola High School. He attended Cal State Northridge where he obtained a bachelor's degree in sociology. He paid for college, in part, by doing background work in television and movies which included commercials for McDonald's and KFC.

To better understand agribusiness and its mindset, Baur obtained a master's degree in agricultural economics from Cornell University.

In the 1980s, after traveling around the United States and learning about agriculture, Baur began investigations into factory farms, stockyards, and slaughterhouses. He believed the conditions he observed were unacceptable, and these experiences helped motivate the creation of Farm Sanctuary, which created the sanctuary movement in North America.

Farm Sanctuary's first rescued animal was a downed (i.e. unable to stand) sheep who had been discarded on a pile of dead animals behind Lancaster stockyards in Pennsylvania in 1986. The sheep, who regained her health and lived for more than ten years, was named Hilda. Farm Sanctuary continued to investigate farms, speak out against factory farming, and rescue animals, funding the fledgling organization by selling vegan hotdogs out of a VW van in the parking lots at Grateful Dead concerts.

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