In the video below, Gene Baur answers questions from YouTube users as part of a series where you can ask various authors anything and everything:

Check out the questions YouTube users asked below to more easily navigate through the first "Ask Gene Baur Anything" session:

• What is Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food about?
  
• Why did you write Farm Sanctuary?
  
• What does the Farm Sanctuary organization do?
  
• What was it that pushed you towards the work you do with animals today?
  
• Why did you decide to go vegan in 1985?
  
• How did Farm Sanctuary get its start in 1986?
  
• Why focus on farm animals rather than human suffering?
  
• How has public opinion on the issues of farm animals and food changed since Farm Sanctuary began?
  
• Could you tell us about some of the animals that Farm Sanctuary has rescued and the conditions that they came from?
  
• TIME magazine recently called you “the conscience of the food movement.”  What do they mean by that?
  
• What are some major campaigns that Farm Sanctuary is now working on?
  
• This past summer, you went on the “Just Eats” tour. What did you learn?   
  
• Is it difficult to be vegan? What are some of your favorite things to eat?
  
• How do the meat, dairy and egg industries affect the environment?
  
• How do you feel about people who boycott factory farms but eat meat, milk and eggs from local, family-owned and organic farms?
  
• Recently agribusiness has backed legislation in several states to make it illegal to take pictures or film video on factory farms.  Has their effort been successful?
  
• How do you see the future of the movement to oppose factory farming?
• In October, Farm Sanctuary is hosting the first “National Conference to End Factory Farming” to bring together environmentalists, public health professionals and animal activists around the issue of factory farming.  Can you tell us about the conference?
  
• How does Big Agriculture respond to Farm Sanctuary and other animal welfare organizations?  Has their attitude towards animal welfare activists shifted over the years?
  
• What’s your advice for someone who wants to go vegetarian or vegan but doesn’t know where to start?
  
• How do you respond to critics who say people need to eat meat for protein and health reasons?
  
• How do you feel, as an advocate of living a healthy lifestyle and treating animals better, what kind of impact the film "Forks Over Knives" can and should have on Americans especially?
  
• What is the effect on our health from eating meat and dairy products?
  
• I can understand why eating meat is bad, but what’s wrong with milk and eggs?  Animals are not killed for dairy products or eggs, so what’s the problem?
  
• How do today's slaughterhouses compare with those in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle?
  
• Can people visit Farm Sanctuary’s three sanctuaries and meet the animals?
  
• What can ordinary people do to stop cruelty to farm animals?
  
• What does how we treat animals say about us as a society?
  
• Aside from farm animals, do you believe our country's animal shelters need to be looked at closer in terms of their conditions?
  

Gene Baur has been hailed as “the conscience of the food movement” by TIME magazine. For 25 years he has campaigned to raise awareness about the abuses of industrialized factory farming and our cheap food system.

A pioneer in the field of undercover investigations, Gene has visited hundreds of farms, stockyards and slaughterhouses documenting the deplorable conditions that exist. His pictures and videos exposing factory farming cruelties have aired nationally and internationally, educating millions about the plight of modern farmed animals.

Gene has also testified in courts and before local, state and federal legislative bodies, advocating for better conditions for farm animals.  His most important achievements include winning the first-ever cruelty conviction at a U.S. stockyard and introducing the first U.S. laws to prohibit cruel farming confinement methods in Florida, Arizona and California.  

Gene holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from California State University Northridge and a master’s degree in agricultural economics from Cornell University.