Justin Van Kleeck is a microsanctuary pioneer—a farm animal rescuer working on a small scal
e, often rescuing animals from small-scale farming operations too, and resisting the calls of industry to tout “humane” or “local” agribusiness as a step in the right direction.
While Justin urges consistency—no amount of homespun pictures or creative PR can ever make animal exploitation “humane”—some will then challenge the commitment to crops as food.
There’s a clever argument, and maybe you’ve heard it, that vegans cause the deaths of more animals by being vegan. Growing crops for human food, the argument goes, involves tractors and threshers that kill field mice, voles, and so forth.
Have you ever noticed how this argument misses all the feed crops used in animal farming? Note, for ex
ample, that 99% of your local chicken farmers drive to feed stores to keep their birds growing and producing. The feed store is reliant on the fossil-fuel industry. So the “local” and “sustainable” concept in animal farming, when we dig deeper, is questionable.
Your local animal farm would also be a consumer of the massive feed industry that uses heavy equipment on the land without regard for the countless small animals seeking food and shelter amidst the fields.
As discussed before on Vegan Place, facile excuses to avoid personal change abound. When people face the reality that becoming vegan is possible, there seems to be a shut-off valve, signifying: “Change myself? No! Let me seize an excuse that I haven’t really thought through and hope you haven’t thought through either. Vegans do more harm—so there! Yeah, that’s the ticket!”
Justin, when confronted with the “vegans kill more animals than your local animal farmers” claim, says:
We vegans start from the premise that exploitation and killing of other beings for our own ends is unacceptable, and we seek solutions…beneficial for all involved. Husbandry starts from the premise that other animals are here for us to use and consume, and all we have to do is be nice. So vegans seek harmonious coexistence without holding a knife to anyone’s throat.
Veganic models of agriculture and permaculture are available. Along with being more sustainable they are also workable in a variety of settings. Veganic urban gardens and food networks EXIST, but animal husbandry does not make sense for all communities. Remember: “If it isn’t accessible by the poor, it is neither radical nor revolutionary.”
In our conversations, Justin has noted that we, our whole generation, are products of an industrial revolution now. Why hold vegans alone responsible for what mechanized farming does to the land and to animals seeking habitat? Vegans didn’t plan to produce food this way.
Feeding crops to animals kills more animals. Animal farms breed large numbers of animals into existence for human consumption.
And when field animals get caught up in the collateral damage in the production of food crops (eaten by vegans and non-vegans), it’s because we’re all dealing with constraints imposed on us by modern agribusiness.
But we can go vegan to stop direct exploitation and killing within our food system, and try to change that system completely. Let’s insist on fewer excuses, and real engagement.
I am grateful to Justin for expanding my knowledge on vegan and sanctuary ethics greatly, and also for being a patron of my animal-liberation work. Photo of Justin: source. Banner photo by Philipp Kuchler (own work), via Wikimedia Commons.
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And then, of course, there are the free-living animals who are killed because they threaten livestock. Wolves, foxes, coyotes, mountain lions, possums, snakes, etc. See Profanity Peak wolf pack and other similar incidences.
Thanks for sharing. It can be frustrating with so many animals being exploited and that being accepted as normal. Keep spreading compassion and hopefully a veganic farming model will someday be the norm.
Thanks for finding and encouraging us. Browsing divinegreenswi.com now…
Let me just say I’m not pro veganism or a pro meat eater. I’m a vegetarian. But this article is completely misguided in that you are trying to argue whether vegans or carnivores kill more animals. Both kill animals and cause major suffering! Intensive farming for meat production often involves the suffering of the target animal but also usually involves intensive crop production to feed these animals, unless they’re range-fed. This crop production needs large areas of cleared land to grow, which in turn kills and causes suffering of an astronomical amount of native flora and fauna. When crops are grown large numbers of inconspicous animals including insects, rodents and birds feed on this while it is growing. As soon as it’s harvested millions of these animals either die of suffering or are displaced into areas where they don’t belong and suffer or die. This is exactly the same for crops grown for human consumption. The only difference is crops grown for human consumption need a much larger area of land.
Just because you can’t see the animals suffering doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about them. I agree farming animals is wrong but too much has been focussed on these animals and very few stand up for the unseen catastophies happening in the natural environment.
Yes we should try and be more self sufficient, ie grow our own vegies. My main reason for going vegetarian is for my health and the fact I can grow most of my veggies.
People need to stop fighting over who’s right and who’s wrong and instead just get all your facts so you can make informed decisions.
Craig