ethical vegan

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

~ Graeme M ~ 4 Comments

(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 (because animals killed to grow the crops we all eat is a shared cost). 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 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. On average then, a vegan-friendly diet is the least harm option.

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The Full Story:

First, a little background. Veganism is not just 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. More to the point, the main goals of vegan principles are to keep animals free and prevent our unfair use of them.

Unfortunately, while we all want to minimise the extent of harm we cause other animals, sometimes we just cannot avoid doing that. 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 so as to defend our food. Regardless of how much farmers might want to not kill “pest” animals, securing our food supply can demand we do just that.

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 find that many animals are 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 as well as 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 animals per year, but it could be much higher (perhaps 200). This is because fish and other sea food (eg prawns) 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. Certainly, the numbers of such animals killed might be considerable. However, I think we don’t need to know this for sure because both kinds of diet demand the use of croplands. The question really is, do we use more cropland for a vegan-friendly diet or for a typical diet?

Well, luckily there has been research into this question. On average, the cropland footprint in the US for a plant-based diet is about 0.17 hectares per year (see, for example, Peters et al, 2016 – Carrying capacity of U.S. agricultural land: Ten diet scenarios), while that of a typical Western-style diet is around 0.34 hectares per year. Whatever the number of animals killed on croplands, the plant-based diet will cause fewer overall.

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 a 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.

The Philosophy of Ethical Veganism Explained

~ Graeme M ~ 6 Comments

My explanation of just what ethical veganism really is.

Summary:

Veganism is an ethical position, the idea that we extend moral concern to other (sentient) species. We are already vegan to other people, all that is in question is how much we can be vegan to other species.

Over thousands of years humans have developed moral principles about how to live well together. Some of these principles have been described as human rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights sets out a generally agreed set of such rights that can and should apply to all people in any society.

The basic, or foundational subset of these are the three rights described at Articles 3-5 of this Declaration. These are the rights to one’s own life, the right to be free and not treated as property or exclusively as a means to an end, and the right not to be treated cruelly.

There are reasons to believe that these basic rights can be extended to many other species. Simply put, we should want other species to be free and in charge of their own lives without being treated badly by us, as much as is possible.

While human rights are often protected at law, animal rights are not. Vegans therefore are people who behave as though these rights for other species are protected. This makes it very easy to work out what to do whenever we can, even if it turns out that the best that we can do can never eliminate the use of other animals for human ends.

The Full Story

Humans have long been engaged in an ethical project (cf Philip Kitcher). Today it is accepted that people deserve certain moral considerations such as to be free to conduct their own lives, to not be tortured or subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, to not be held in slavery, and to have their interests protected at law. People also deserve to be treated justly. Justice is understood to mean fair treatment and for the victims of unfair treatment to be protected (and perhaps for the perpetrators of unfair treatment to receive punishment).

These ethical principles have been embedded in what are known as human rights. In particular the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights sets out in 30 articles the fundamental human rights to be universally protected. Generally speaking rights and just treatment are confined to our species.

Ethical Veganism is the idea that the principles expressed by three of these fundamental rights – Articles 3-5 of the Declaration – should be extended to other species whenever possible. Vegans believe that we owe a moral obligation to other species to respect their rights to their own lives, not be enslaved and not be subjected to cruel treatment or torture, whenever we can.

This makes it very easy to evaluate what choices and behaviours we should enact in regard to other species. It also offers a clear distinction about those who endorse veganism and those who advocate for animal rights.

Human rights are protected in law – legislation in many different countries seeks to constrain people to observing these rights. Animal rights however are not well protected in law. Because this is the case, people who endorse veganism behave as though those rights are protected, while animal rights advocates also agitate to have those rights protected in law.

While people who endorse veganism choose to act as though animals’ rights are protected, their behaviours will depend to some extent on circumstances. This means that in some cases, animals may still be used and harmed for human needs.

For example, someone living where access to food is limited might own animals from whom food and fibre is collected or obtained. People living in traditional communities with limited access to modern goods and services might continue to hunt other animals for food and fibre. Animals might be used in the pursuit of medical treatments where the outcome can be shown to benefit many.

Generally speaking however, when one lives where circumstances permit then one should make choices that aim to respect and protect the rights of other species. In other words, it is up to the individual how best to act so as to protect other species. For example, they may choose to eat a plant-based diet.

People sometimes argue that farming animals as well as growing crops for food might be preferable to growing only crops. For example, they describe regenerative farming as the most ethical option. It seems to me that this argument is open to debate on empirical grounds, given there is some dispute about the overall efficacy of regenerative agriculture. I cannot adjudicate on that. However, as a broad stance based on my explanation above and within the context of the idea that other species deserve basic rights, it should be clear that animal farming is not ethical.

Our ethical concern in regard to animal farming emerges from its failure to observe the three principles above. We might be able to make farming relatively cruelty free, but we cannot make the animals free or unexploited nor prevent their ultimate harm. Therefore, while minimising pain and suffering in animal farming is consistent with our duty to prevent cruelty, animal welfare in the context of human use of other species falls short of our overall ethical obligation.

Because animal farming fails to fully respect the rights of other species as explained above, people who endorse veganism as an ethical stance will more than likely choose not to buy products derived from animal farming and will prefer to buy and use goods that have been produced without the use and exploitation of other animals, whenever they can. Of course, in the broader sense it might turn out that it simply is not possible to prevent the use of animals completely, if at all, because that is just the way things are. We may simply have to face the fact that whatever ethical failure accrues from this, it is the best we can do in the circumstances.