Month: January 2024

Crop Deaths Revisited – Why a Vegan-Friendly Diet is Likely to be Least Harm

~ Graeme M ~ Leave a comment

(Three minute read)

Lately it seems every vegan critic wants to point to animal deaths in cropping to expose the hypocrisy of vegans. Here, I provide a brief analysis of why this is not the criticism many think it is.

Summary:

To find out if more animals are killed for a typical vegan-friendly diet versus a typical omnivore’s diet, we are only interested in the number of animals killed on the area of land needed to grow crops to replace animal food in the omnivore diet. It turns out just one tenth of a hectare is required. Few useful estimates of the animals killed to grow crops can be found. One of the highest estimates came from Mike Archer in 2011 when he claimed 100 animals are killed per hectare per year. This means a vegan-friendly diet might cause about 10 animals to be killed each year to replace animals in someone’s diet. The average omnivore causes about 50-100 animals to be killed directly and some number of others as part of that process. A vegan-friendly diet is likely to be the least harm option.

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The Full Story:

First, a little background. Veganism is not merely a diet but rather the idea that we should include other animals within the scope of our moral concern to treat others fairly and deliver them justice whenever we can. While many people believe that veganism is about doing the least harm or even no harm to animals. I would say it is not specifically trying to do that. It’s about doing what we can to be fair to other animals when possible. And sometimes, we have to harm other animals just like we sometimes must with other people. For example, very few people would say that we should not kill mosquitoes to protect people from malaria or that we should not cull wild populations when necessary. By the same token we can kill pests in agriculture when necessary.

But let’s cut to the chase. Are more animals killed for someone to eat a vegan-friendly, plants-only diet than for someone to eat an omnivore diet? The answer is hard to untangle because no-one knows for sure. There just is not much empirical research. We do know that few large animals are killed incidentally in croplands from activities like harvesting and tilling. Many more are killed by farmers controlling pests, but here the evidence is very sketchy.

What studies have been done of animal mortality in croplands don’t document animals being killed in crop cultivation. Indeed, it’s relatively uncommon to find peer-reviewed research documenting such an outcome. Tellingly, a wheat farmer in the UK once blogged about this very problem, hoping to document the deaths of many animals in a year’s worth of production. He failed to record even one (ignoring invertebrates, though we will come to that concern).

It turns out that estimates of cropland mortality vary. This problem was originally noted in a famous paper by Steven Davis back in 2003. He found that just 15 animals per hectare are killed on US croplands. Later still, Professor Mike Archer from the University of New South Wales claimed up to 100 animals are killed per hectare in Australian wheat fields (this was later claimed to be an exaggeration and revised to just 1.27 animals per hectare). And a blogger called Farming Truth once argued that as many as 117 animals die per hectare in the US.

But raw numbers may be misleading. When we think about this problem, we can be confident that most people are eating a variety of foods of both plant and animal origin. People directly eat grains, seeds, nuts, fruits and vegetables or derived foods such as bread, buns, cakes, French fries, sugar, wine, beer, herbs and spices and so on.

So, very nearly all of us are eating plants. The animals killed to grow those plants is a shared cost. While Jack the vegan eats plants and as a result animals are killed to grow this food, Jill the omnivore does the same. If we want to find out if Jack overall causes more animals to be harmed, we only need to work out how many animals are killed for the plants needed to replace animals in his diet and compare that to how many animals are killed for Jill to eat animals in her diet.

Most estimates suggest Jill will eat somewhere around 50-100 animal per year, but it could be much higher (perhaps 200). This is because fish and other sea food (eg shrimp) are animals too. And don’t forget, we could also include as part of her toll on other animals the pests (such as feral dogs, pigs and deer) killed by animal farmers and the by-catch and incidental deaths (eg macerated chicks) killed in the production of animal foods. Lastly, many of the animals people eat are raised in concentrated animal feed operations which are fed from crops often grown for that purpose. Farmers kill pests in all situations, whether when growing crops for human food, for animal feed, or raising animals for food.

Jack on the other hand needs about one tenth of a hectare of land to produce the plant food that could replace animals in his diet. Even when we use the highest estimate of 100 animals killed per hectare in croplands made by Mike Archer (and since shown to be an exaggeration), we find Jack will cause just 10 animals to be killed for his food.

It seems very likely that on average, Jack’s diet is the least harmful.

Wait, you say, what about all the invertebrates killed in crop farming? Well, this is an open question because we just don’t know enough. Many farmed animals are found in mixed systems that also grow crops, farmed animals kill other small animals by walking on them, farmers treat ruminants for lice/fleas and other parasites, and small animals are killed to grow feed for farmed animals, including growing and harvesting of hay and silage.

Also, veganism is not specifically concerned with every kind of animal. Sure people can take it that way, but realistically we are most concerned with sentient animals. Many invertebrates just may not be sentient in the ways that count. That doesn’t mean we should ignore the harm to invertebrate species or to the environment and biosphere, but those are different concerns. Concern for the fair treatment of sentient beings can co-exist with more general concerns about other matters, just as concern for human rights abuses doesn’t mean we can’t also worry about pollution of the oceans.

In the end it seems likely that a typical vegan-friendly diet is best if we want to reduce harms to other animals and be fairer to the sentient animals we farm.

That said, someone can certainly make choices that do even better if least harm is their only metric. For example, a carnivore dieter who takes considerable care to source their food from ethical and sustainable sources and thus can be confident that they have caused the deaths of just a handful of large animals in a year is on solid ground. On my rights-based stance that doesn’t necessarily fly but for many people, least harm as a principle carries weight.

Of course, what you choose to do is up to you.

Veganism As An Animal Rights Matter

~ Graeme M ~ 3 Comments

I have argued that veganism is the idea that we have moral concern for other sentient species. I would summarise this as saying that veganism recognises the inherent value and dignity of other species and encourages us to treat them fairly by our choices whenever we can.

We already do this in regard to other people and one notable way that we frame this is via human rights. Human rights recognise the inherent value of each person, regardless of background, where we live, what we look like, what we think or what we believe. They are based on principles of dignity, equality and mutual respect, which are shared across cultures, religions and philosophies. They are about being treated fairly, treating others fairly and having the ability to make genuine choices in our daily lives.

While there are any number of moral theories that set out to provide reasons for treating other animals well, I take the view that a rights-based approach can work as well as any. So, on the grounds I presented above, I suggest that veganism aims to treat other animals fairly by endorsing the principle that we behave as though other animals have the same basic rights as other people, whenever we can.

These basic rights for animals are the rights to be free and not property, in control of their own lives, and not to be treated cruelly. While the UK Vegan Society (which invented the concept of veganism) does describe veganism as a meat free diet, the history of the Society shows that ending unfair animal use and harm was a significant – if not the main – priority. We can therefore derive the current Vegan Society definition for veganism from the rights-based position I advocate.

Note that I am not saying that other species have rights, but rather that when we behave as though they have these rights, we are more likely to make choices that respect them and consequently be fairer in the ways our actions affect them.

By way of example, if we agree that it is not fair to own animals, to treat them as an object of production, to limit their ability to pursue their life on their own terms and to treat them cruelly, we would choose not to buy products from intensive animal farming operations. Alternatively, if we believe we must consume animal products, we should prefer to buy from those enterprises that violate these rights the least (and thereby are fairer in their treatment of the animals concerned).

A Brief History Of Veganism And Where To From Here

~ Graeme M ~ 5 Comments

(Image from UK Vegan Society website)

(Four minute read)

Humans are moral creatures and we have been working out morality for most of our existence, though with the focus squarely on our own species. Having moral regard for other animals on the other hand is a more recent phenomenon, perhaps as recent as the past several thousand years. For example, some ancient Greek philosophers held that other animals deserve our moral regard when working out what’s best to do when our actions affect them.

Over the years attitudes to this idea have fluctuated from disregard to quite determined support for fairer treatment of animals. One famous example is the concern over vivisection in Britain during the 19th century. The anti-vivisection movement, largely led by women, became one of the prominent social activist causes of the time. It was not uncommon in those times for people to regard other animals as almost unfeeling automatons.

For some time there have been people we would loosely describe as vegetarians. The Jains in India for several thousand years have believed in the principle of non-violence, including all living things within their scope. In Britain, the Vegetarian Society was formed in 1847 as a natural follow on from growing interest in moral concern for other animals. The Vegetarian Society promoted a meat-free diet for its members. Even today, the Society claims to be “UK’s original and leading voice for the vegetarian and vegan movement… driven by their convictions and hungry for change”.

In the late 1940s, some members of the Vegetarian Society sought to go further and promoted the idea of dairy-free, egg-free vegetarianism. Donald Watson and several others formed a sub-group which promoted a “vegan” diet. The term “vegan” was formed from the first and last letters of “vegetarian”. The first newsletter appeared in 1945 and the Vegan Society came into being.

The Vegan Society’s main aim was for members to avoid any animal products as food, but it also encouraged members to avoid the use of “animal commodities”. However, while its original meaning largely referred to diet, the idea for veganism came from an underlying motivation to treat other animals better. That is, veganism embraced the moral belief that humans should free animals from human use and ill-treatment and restore a fairer relationship with them.

The original definition Watson offered was:

  • VEGANISM is the practice of living on fruits, nuts, vegetables, grains and other wholesome non-animal products.
  • VEGANISM excludes as human food: flesh, fish, fowl, eggs, honey, and animals’ milk, butter and cheese.
  • VEGANISM aims at encouraging the manufacture and use of alternatives to animal products.

Watson himself was vegan on compassionate and health grounds, believing as he did that a vegan diet was best for human health. While he had a vision for what veganism might mean, he didn’t remain with the Vegan Society very long. By 1949 Watson had no further active involvement in the Society.

At the November 1948 General Meeting, Leslie J Cross was elected to the committee. Cross was an emancipationist, which today we would think of as an animal rights advocate. He believed that the Vegan Society should be more vocal in support of animal emancipation, ie animal rights. Cross introduced a new Constitution in 1950 and proposed a new definition for Veganism:

  • The object of the Society shall be to end the exploitation of animals by man… The word veganism shall mean the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals… The Society pledges itself in pursuance of its object to seek to end the use of animals by man for food, commodities, work, hunting, vivisection and all other uses involving exploitation of animal life by man.

There followed a rather up and down time for some years during which the definition of veganism and what people wanted it to represent changed often. Broadly speaking, it swung back and forth between being primarily about diet and health to being about animal rights first and foremost. Interestingly, membership seemed to rise and fall in concert with this – more members when diet-focused while fewer members when rights-focused.

In 1962, the definition became:

  • Veganism is a way of living which excludes all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, the animal kingdom ….

The definition ever since has largely remained true to the aim of preventing animal exploitation and cruelty. Of course, people didn’t think in terms of “animal rights” as such in those early days but rather in general terms of “emancipation” of animals from human mistreatment. Animal rights as a concept really emerged in the 1970s, probably in response to Peter Singer’s controversial and influential book Animal Liberation. Singer also introduced to a wider audience the idea of “speciesism”, a term first coined in 1970 by British psychologist Richard Ryder.

Interestingly, vegan societies in other countries varied from the UK Society with most focusing primarily on a plant-based diet rather than an animal rights motivation. The American Vegan Society was founded by Jay Dinshah in 1960. This organisation focused on veganism as a plant-based diet but introduced Ahimsa as the basis for its beliefs about animal treatment. That remains the case to this day with the AVS describing veganism as a lifestyle that embraces eating only plants while integrating Ahimsa into one’s everyday life. Ahimsa is a spiritual tradition common to Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, expressing the ethical principle of not causing harm to living things.

Today, the UK Vegan Society definition is:

  • Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.

While the definition, meaning and enactment of veganism has varied over the years, progress in the broader field of animal protection and rights consideration has similarly been evolving. Today there exists a deep and comprehensive literature around the matter as well as many highly influential thinkers whose ideas have ranged across notions of care, compassion, protection and rights.

This suggests to me that the core idea that we should have moral concern for other sentient species has taken solid root. It is no longer odd to consider this as a major feature of our relations with other species and significant progress has been made both in general philosophical terms as well as hard legislative reform.

However, I believe that in the public mind, the field remains somewhat uncertain and ill-defined. Veganism in particular seems to address and be concerned with diet, health, the environment and animal rights. Veganism today is a global movement of sorts that has well and truly outgrown its beginnings to the extent that the original UK Vegan Society is today a minor player. Yet for many, the Society sets the bar for what veganism IS.

My own view is that we need a basic reformation of the concept and its practice and promotion. When we strip all of these ideas down to their most basic form, we find that veganism as an ethical concern and animal rights as a concept are facets of one underlying moral motivation – that we should be fair to other animals whenever we can. Our relationship with other species should be marked by fairness and justice to the extent that is reasonably possible. How we might do this is open to discussion and informed debate, but as a fundamental feature of human relations with other animals I think this is how we should now think about our obligations to other species.

Given the long history and now deeply entrenched awareness of veganism, I believe that veganism remains the best term available to us to describe our moral obligation to other species, but suggest that a change in the public perception is needed for broader public engagement. I am not proposing a change to the several definitions of veganism, but rather that we come to believe that veganism embraces all possible ways that we can aim to do right by our fellow beings. Veganism is, if you like, the domain of moral concern for other sentient species, equivalent to the fundamental idea that we owe moral regard to the animals our actions affect.

“Veganism recognises the inherent value and dignity of other species and aims to treat them fairly by our choices whenever we can”

Read more:

So Why Veganism?

Does Vegan Advocacy Need A Reform?

My Vegan Elevator Pitch