Activist: "Wool is cruel. The sheep should be left alone."
Farmer: "Alone where?"
Activist: "In a sanctuary."
Farmer: "Doing what."
Activist: "Just being a sheep."
Farmer: "Sheep have been bred for ten thousand years to grow a fleece that doesn't stop. If I don't shear her, she overheats, gets fly strike, and dies in her own coat with maggots eating her from the skin down."
Activist: "Then breed sheep that don't grow wool."
Farmer: "We did. They're called mouflon. They live on cliffs in Sardinia and would last forty minutes on a Welsh hillside before something ate them."
Activist: "I just don't think we should use animals for clothing."
Farmer: "What's your jumper made of."
Activist: "...recycled polyester."
Farmer: "Plastic, then. Sheds microfibre into the washing machine every wash. The fibres go through the filter, into the river, into the fish, into you. When you're done with it, it sits in a landfill for four hundred years. My sheep's fleece composts in a hedge in eighteen months and grew back on her this spring."
Activist: "But the sheep didn't consent."
Farmer: "She was lying down with her eyes closed when I finished. She got up and went back to eating. I'd suggest you ask her how she feels, but she's busy, and I think she's already given her answer."