Mcd, Don't worry about what people say. Look at what they do.
If more people want to become vegan, good for them. What we need to do as smallholders is not to fight back against that, but to offer a viable high-welfare alternative for those who do continue to eat meat.
For example, we raised a batch of meat chickens and took them to our local poultry abbatoir for processing:
Abbatoir Vet: "no, no, this is all wrong. Under '% mortality', you've written 'nil'".
Womble: "That's because none died"
Vet: "no, not today. Since you bought the chicks"
Womble: "But I bought forty chicks, and now I'm bringing you forty adults?"
Vet: Looks perplexed. "OK, let's go and have a look at these birds of yours then".
Vet: Looks stunned. "Wow. They've all got feathers!!".
I can't blame anybody for deciding not to eat animal products if that's how they're produced.
The truth is, the world has gone mad, and food is produced in all sorts of unsustainable ways. I therefore think there's a good case for us doing something different in the marketplace, be that rare breeds, higher welfare, low food miles, whatever. The trick is going to be raising awareness, and finding people who are willing to pay a wee bit more for what we do. Perhaps our ideal market is people who would like to go vegan, but don't like vegetables enough?