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Documentary Film MAD COWBOY, The Story of Howard Lyman

by Jennie Richards · Published March 1, 2016 · Updated June 15, 2017

Former cattle rancher turned vegan and animal and environmental rights advocate: “What we’re doing to them is wrong, absolutely wrong.”

The feature documentary film MAD COWBOY chronicles Howard Lyman’s life and transition from raising cattle for slaughter to becoming a staunch animal and environmental rights activist, and vegan advocate. The film is based on his best-selling book MAD COWBOY: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won’t Eat Meat, and represents three years in the making, 150 hours of footage, and countless interviews of ranchers, farmers, doctors, scientists, activists, victims, and consumers, and opinions on every side of the issue. Howard says about the state of our animal food system and its destructive impacts, “some believe the worst is over, some believe the worst is yet to come.”

Lyman was a fourth-generation Montana cattle rancher, but after nearly dying from exposure to toxic pesticides, herbicides and chemicals used on his ranch and in raising his cattle for beef, he blasts the propaganda of the beef and dairy industry—and the government agencies that protect and support them—to expose the truth about the harmful, unhealthy and miserable ways that animals are raised for food today. He lambastes the agribusiness industry and government for industrial farming’s destructive impacts to our environment, and cautions us about how an animal-based diet is a primary cause of cancer, heart disease and obesity in this country. His near-death experience awakened him to seeing his animals as sentient beings instead of as “meat,” and says, “It’s wrong, it’s absolutely wrong,” about killing cows for meat. Now, he acknowledges “There’s not a bad bone in these cows,” and he admits he just enjoys communing with his cows today. Howard’s journey has led him from ranching to organic agriculture, vegetarianism, veganism, politics, an in-depth investigation into Mad Cow and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a landmark lawsuit, two best-selling books and a film, and the founding of the non-profit Voice for a Viable Future.

Some Quotes from the Film

“Some of the strongest opponents and critics of what animal agriculture has become are long-time farmers and ranchers who are horrified by how animals have been turned into mechanical devices, penned up, pumped full of drugs, producing products as cheaply and quickly as possible.”

“We’ve heard a lot of talk about evil since 9-11, but we ignore the other kind of evil—there’s the cold, institutional, systemic evil of the industrialized factory farm system, where billions and billions of animals are treated in absolute evil, and the animals are terrified. If the average person saw what is happening to create their meal, they would be horrified—we need to create that awareness in people.”

“For me it was putting a face on the meat, seeing the being who was the chop, the being who was the steak, the being who was the drumstick. What happens to them matters to them.”

“Just try to imagine the worst plight of a farm animal about to be slaughtered, A deeply sensitive and intelligent being, one who knows what is about to happen, that is trapped and can’t escape—just try to envision what it’s like for them.”

“American agriculture is in deep trouble, and very few people realize it. And when they do realize it, it will probably be too late.”

“There are other beings in the world besides humans, who are aware of the world, and are aware of what happens to them, and it matters to them. They have a biography, not merely a biology. They are a somebody, not a something. When you have that awareness you understand – that those beings have no voice, they have no power, they have no constituency among themselves to speak for themselves. So you understand, for them to be heard, you must do the speaking for them. Your commitment to the vulnerable—must extend beyond the human family.”

“Compassion is not often extended to domesticated animals. We’ve completely transformed the way the animals live. It’s one of the most compelling arguments that we can make for people to stop eating meat, and prompt this great reduction of this environmental toll from meat production.”

“It was just accepted, the raising of cows, calves and pigs for slaughter, it wasn’t until I broadened my perspective, I traveled, saw another way of life, that I decided it isn’t right – I became a vegetarian more for health reasons, and after that when I found out what was really going on, it was more for the animals and the environment.”

“People have to demand from their food suppliers that products be certified organic, and that products do not come from industrial agriculture. The industrialization of agriculture has taken the farming out of agriculture, and replaced it with very questionable practices that is placing our health in danger, placing our rural communities in danger, and putting our entire future in danger.”

“The planet has had a hard enough time sustaining meat production for an elite number of people in the U.S., Europe and Japan. The scenario of China, India and Africa moving to a high meat diet in almost inconceivable from a resource perspective and environmental perspective, let alone from a public health perspective.”

“What history teaches us is that when there are a few good people who are determined, and who are persistent, and who don’t give up—they can change the world. What we have to believe as activists—that we’re not going to do this tomorrow—the wall of oppression, has to be taken apart one brick at a time. When we get a critical mass of people, that’s how change will occur. That’s how I’m able to get up every morning.”

“In 1979 I was paralyzed from the waist down. I stopped and looked at what I was doing on the farm. I started thinking if those things that was happening on my farm, and asking were those things connected to my brother’s death, and my tumor? I committed to spend the rest of my life in that hospital bed—to getting the farm back to what it was growing up. I had a responsibility to my father, my grandfather, my great grandfather. I had no doubt that we were destroying what we loved. I vowed to save what I professed to love.”

“The food disparagement laws in the U.S. are patently unconstitutional, they’re the biggest single threat to free speech and the First Amendment that I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

“Commercial free speech (for corporations) has been massively expanded, while diminishing our personal free speech – because of recent Supreme Court decisions.”

“Changing pubic policy is not going to happen in Washington D.C., it’s going to happen at the grassroots level.”

“Ask the question—who produced my food? What did they use on it? What is it doing to me, the environment, the animals? Is it right that we end up with more cancer, less topsoil, fewer trees—when are we going to stand up and say enough is enough? And that we’re absolutely destroying the planet.”

“I believe we are up against the wall. We can’t take a pass. We can’t say it’s up to someone else. My message to people is that it’s up to you, to get involved, and if you don’t—there may not be a future for our children and grandchildren. And all of those animals that we are killing—those animals are killing us, this is about the absolute survival of the human species. And I will spread this message as long as I’m alive.”

About Howard Lyman

Howard Lyman is a 4th generation family farmer (and now vegan) from Montana. After 20 years of operating a cattle ranch and feedlot, he sold his ranch and started working for farmers in financial trouble. He went to work as a lobbyist in Washington D.C., then ran for Congress in 1982. He became the Executive Director of Jeremy Rifkin’s “Beyond Beef” campaign, then led a number of highly visible campaigns as well as non-profit organizations including: President of EarthSave International, Director of Organic Consumers Association, Director for Center for Food Safety, President of the International Vegetarian Union and Program Director for the “Eating With a Conscience” campaign for the Humane Society of the United States.

Today, Lyman is President of Voice For A Viable Future that promotes organic family farming, biodiversity, veganism and vegetarianism, environmentally-friendly practices and enlightened trade, and he is one of the most prominent activists in the animal rights and environmental movements in the nation. Howard has published two books in addition to producing the film documentary, and now travels the world speaking on these issues that affect us all.

Film Length: 58 Minutes

Original Film Release: 2005