Does a Vegan Diet Minimize Animal Deaths?

The standard argument that animal rights advocated make for a vegetarian or vegan diet is that it is the diet that causes the least harm to animals. But is this, in fact, true?

Animals are killed, after all, in the production of the grains and vegetables that vegans and vegetarians eat. Steven Davis, an animal science professor at Oregon State University, recently looked at this issue and in an address to the European Society for Agriculture and Food Ethics argued that, in fact, a vegan diet is likely suboptimal if the main goal is to limit the number of animals killed.

The available data on how many animals are killed from agriculture is certainly spotty. Since field mice and other animals aren’t usually considered morally relevant, few people (including vegetarians and vegans) ever bother to ask how many animals die during the various aspects of agricultural production.

In a press release from OSU, Davis said,

Over the years that I have been studying animal rights theories, I have never found anyone who has considered the deaths of — or, the ‘harm’ to — animals in the field. This, it seems to me, is a serious omission. . . . Because most of these animals have been seen as expendable, or not seen at all, few scientific studies have been done measuring agriculture’s effects on their populations.

Still, Davis maintains that, based on the best available evidence, mortality for food production is likely to be high. One study Davis mentions, for example, found a 50 percent reduction in gray-tailed voles from just a single mowing of alfalfa. Add to that tractors involved in plowing, planting, and harvesting of crops, and the death toll starts to add up.

Based on the current evidence, Davis argues that a ruminant-pasture model of food production would minimize the deaths of animals. Essentially this ditches almost all animal agriculture except for beef and dairy products. Ruminants minimize animal deaths because cattle requires fewer invasive entries into fields with tractors and other machines.

The OSU press release says,

According to his calculations, such a model would result in the deaths of 300 million fewer animals annually (counting both field animals and cattle) than would a total vegan model. This difference, according to Davis, is mainly the result of fewer field animals killed in pasture and forage production than in the growing and harvest of grain, beans, and corn.

So please, the next time you sit down to eat, remember the animals — have a steak.

Source:

OSU Scientist Questions the Moral Basis of a Vegan Diet. Peg Herring, Oregon State University, March 5, 2002.