But Vegans Kill Animals Too!!??!?!?

Many vegans have heard it before, “You’re no better than me! Animals die during farming!” This seems to be a last-resort, point of contention to soothe the conflicted, carnist mind. Based on no research at all, carnists conclude that millions of animals are killed every year because of vegans.

It seems the source of this is a paper written by Stephen Davis, called The Least Harm Principle, in which the author argues that because animals (snakes, rodents, insects) are killed during crop harvesting and during the clearing of fields for crops, the least harmful diet would be to eat large grazing mammals (cows) and dairy from these mammals. He admits in the paper that no research has been done to provide any sort of estimation as to how many animals are killed through the tilling and harvesting of fields, but that doesn’t stop him from making up some numbers and going from there.

Let me start by mentioning that when they harvest crops or clear a field, they use large, very loud machinery that would probably scare away most animals before it pulverized them. Insects would probably still be killed, but I can’t imagine anymore than when you drive a car. When they clear a field to make room for crops, they would probably displace a lot of animal habitats, but the majority of deforestation is caused by clearing fields for cattle-grazing, soy production (98% of which goes to farm animals in the U.S.), and palm oil (a product many vegans avoid).

All that aside, let’s assume millions of animals are killed in crop production. I’ll first also assume that Davis and his diehard followers are not only eating a diet of grass-fed beef and dairy from grass-fed, free roaming cows. I assume, being natural herbivores, their bodies also require fiber and plant-based nutrients, like everyone else. So right off the bat, they are responsible not only for the deaths of the cows they eat, but also for the deaths of animals in fields that grow their vegetables.

In my experience, people who use this argument don’t stick to just grass fed mammals and vegetables either. They just eat the typical Am*****an diet, but cover it up with this excuse. Assuming that’s the case, we also have to factor in:

deforestation caused by grazing cattle (60% of deforestation is related to animal agriculture)
all the harvested crops their food has to eat (the U.S. livestock population consumes more than seven times as much grain as is consumed directly by the entire Am*****an population)
all the marine animals unintentionally caught in fishing practices (for every 4 lbs of retail fish caught, 1 lb of other fish dies. Shrimp has the opposite ratio)
all the other environmental destruction caused by animal agriculture that invariably kills animals and destroys their habitats
the harvesting of the vegetables they also have to eat

However, I don’t want to rule out the possibility that there are people who somehow subsist only on large, grazing mammals and mammalian secretions. While Davis concludes that these people are only responsible for the death of the cows, we still have to factor in fish killed from manure runoff, fields cleared for grazing, methane produced by cows, which contributes to global warming, which kills and displaces animals, flies swatted away by cows’ tails, and perhaps small animals trampled on by cows. I could fudge some numbers and formulate an equation to prove my point, but I see no reason to.

The next issue to address is that when we’re dealing with an ethical concept such as ‘harm’, we have to look not only at number of deaths, but also suffering and exploitation. As any vegan can tell you, the dairy industry is far from idyllic scenes of compassion and pleasure. It is an industry rife with suffering and cruelty (yes, even when it’s labeled “ humane”). Not to mention that raising animals for food is inherently exploitative. Animals are not commodities for us to force into existence, raise, steal from, and then kill. They are sentient beings that deserve the right to their own self-agency and an existence unhindered by man. Maybe an animal is killed in a field by farming equipment, but at least they were allowed to live their life as they pleased before that tragic occurrence.

The ideal solution in an ideal world isn’t killing cows to avoid crop production deaths; it’s growing organic food in greenhouses and avoiding all deaths. Nobody can live a life totally free from harm, but I think it’s safe to conclude that in our current day situation, an organic vegan diet does the least amount of harm to animals and the environment, followed by a non-organic one, and should therefore be pursued at all costs.