Crop Deaths

A common retort spouted by Anti-Vegans are the claims from crop-deaths, and how it's actually the VEGANS who are killing more animals than the average meat-eater due to the number of animals (usually insects or rodents) that end up being killed in crop production.

Usually, these arguments are not presented in good faith; It's very strange how someone who has no problem with the suffering and deaths of highly sentient beings will all of a sudden start to care about worms. It's fair to say that 99% of the people spouting this argument don't actually care about the animals killed in crop production, and are only concerned with making a shallow "no u" statement in order to make Vegans look like hypocrites.

The argument has been around for a while but it seems to have picked up steam in the past few years. It may seem pretty damning at first, but once you take a few minutes to break it down, it's incredibly easy to refute.

Livestock consume crops as well

These people seem to forget that cows, chickens, and pigs don't survive on air; They, like every other land-dwelling animal, requires FOOD in order to be sustained. Food such as oats, corn, and soy, which, by our observations are GROWN as CROPS on FARMLAND. In fact, the MAJORITY of these crops are given to livestock... just something to think about.

A response to that would be something along the lines of, the majority of crops grown (give or take 86%) are not fit for human consumption anyway. The people using this as a response are either too stupid or not paying enough attention to realize that this actually is more of an argument against THEM than vegans. Let's break it down.

First, considering that we are already growing enough crops to feed the world over (all fit for human consumption), but giving roughly half of it to livestock is a huge waste. Feeding the population of the United States with crops grown inside the country would overall require less land, crops, and resources than if we were to continue eating meat-based diets, and of course, by extension, result in fewer crop deaths overall. This is basic thermodynamics, and there is not way around it. Livestock NEEDS more crops grown for them than would be necessary for humans, and supporting animal agriculture will result in more crop deaths than the plant-based alternative.

Secondly, it's so weird how it's expected to be a rebuttal against the argument that livestock requires more crops, since, as already mentioned, we are already producing enough food with the relatively small amount of land being used. An additional 86% of crops being grown is bringing in the requirement of needing FAR more land that is ONLY useful for livestock. In the United States, roughly a third of the entire country's land mass is used for cattle pasture, and growing livestock feed. We don't need anywhere near that much land to feed the world on plant-based diets. This results in deforestation (destroys habitats, and contributes more to climate change with the loss of trees).

The fact that a huge majority of crops are not fit for human consumption just shows how much of a waste it is. Even if the current amount of crops being grown are necessary to sustain a human population, this is all land and resources that COULD be used to grow crops that humans CAN eat. But we're getting off track here.