Animal rights group, PETA, held a demonstration on Wye Bridge in Builth Wells on the first day of the Royal Welsh Show.

“Farmers Love Animals to Death.” That’s the message a group of PETA supporters unfurled over Wye Bridge this morning.

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, say the banner was to remind visitors that all animals raised for food endure immense suffering and a violent death at the slaughterhouse when most are still just babies.

The action comes two years after PETA encouraged the Royal Welsh Show organisers to reimagine the event as a celebration of Wales’s hard-working plant farmers by removing the “livestock” parade and going vegan.

Kate Werner from PETA said: “We dropped the banner today on the first day of the Royal Welsh Show to highlight that the animals being paraded at the show and millions more like them are on farms across the UK have a terrifying life.

“They’re mutilated, abused on farms, they have their tails and their beaks cut off without anaesthesia, teeth filed down and the banner said ‘Farmers love animals to death,’ and farmers claim to love their animals but loving their animals isn’t exploiting them and killing them and eating them.

“If anybody saw the banner drop, or is thinking about the issue, the way they can remedy it is by going vegan and people can get a free vegan starter kit at PETA.org.uk.”

PETA Vice President of Vegan Corporate Projects Dawn Carr said: “There’s nothing loving about parading animals against their will in front of noisy crowds with mouths full of flesh, either. PETA is urging everyone to leave the violence of animal farming behind and embrace a kinder, more sustainable approach to agriculture. The future of farming is plants.”

The Royal Welsh Agricultural Society has been approached for a comment.