We Need To Rethink All Of Modern Agriculture

The more I learn about contemporary agriculture of all forms the more I'm convinced that the decision to avoid eating animals is only a limited response to the myriad problems of modern farming. I'm in no way suggesting that eating exclusively plants should be abandoned as a strategy of reform. But I am saying that, in and of itself, its promises are modest at best. We need a new perspective on the issue, one that thinks bigger about agriculture's future.

Begin with the common vegan claim that a vegan diet does not harm animals. This claim, which typically means to say that vegans do not intentionally harm domesticated or hunted animals, overlooks the fact that untold numbers of sentient little creatures-I'm excluding insects here (more on them soon)-are sliced and diced and crushed to harvest our plant-based diet. It also overlooks the fact that vegetable farmers rarely suffer larger animals-say, deer-from cutting into their profits. Lead injections are par for the course on the happy veggie farm, as are insecticides (even organic) that harm more than insects.

As much as we would like to sidestep this issue, vegans cannot declare themselves free from harm and tuck into their tofu. In fact, there may be cases in which raising and killing and eating one large farm animal, instead of clearing the land to raise kale and kill vermin, is-at least in utilitarian terms-less harmful to the animal world. I'm not at all saying eating domesticated animals is a choice we should make, but I am noting that there are arguments to be made that it could reduce animal suffering. That's tough medicine to take, but we need to at least swallow it.

Many of you have no doubt heard some version or other of this objection. I think it needs to be taken more seriously than we've taken it, if for no other reason than the fact that it nudges us towards a radically new way to conceptualize food and the human-animal relationship. Again-I'm not going to any way suggest eating domesticated of hunted creatures. Instead, I'm going to ask you to think in a more radical way about animals, food, and agriculture; more radical than just saying no to eating critters.

It's comforting and relatively easy to give up animal products and declare our hands clean. But they're only clean in the way that the person who fails to pull the switch to kill one person instead of five in the famous trolley experiment has clean hands. As it now stands, anyone who eats has animal blood on her hands. So if deciding to give up animal products is not enough, or only a symbolic gesture in light of the problem's severity, what are we supposed to do? What are our options.

We must be advocates, of course. But we have to maximize our advocacy. I would argue that advocating a plant-based diet is meaningless if it's not complemented by an equal, if not stronger, advocacy for climate controlled agriculture. That is, vegans who think they are helping animals by not eating them would be much more effective if they enjoined veganism with advocacy for a farming future that could realistically eliminate all animal harm. Growing food indoors, where condition are carefully monitored, is quite possible if we're willing to give up row crops and eat a diversity of whole plants.

As agriculture now stands, we cannot assume that not eating animals alone would necessarily reduce animal suffering. Expanding acreage in kale would expand the acreage where squirrels and bunnies and mice and birds and deer are also killed. Move agriculture inside-that is, radically rethink and advocate and invest in a new form of agriculture-and the game really changes in a way that improves the lives of animals, not to mention that of humans who, having decided not to channel our resources into domesticated animals can start cultivating the thousands of nutrient dense crops we now neglect I would even suggest-tentatively-that this agricultural future could include room for eating animals at the margins, where the ethics of killing sentient animals intentionally don't apply. I've written extensively about roadkill as a viable dietary supplement and I'm as eager as ever to support that option. I've also written about eating insects and, although not as convinced, I feel fairly sure that this could be an acceptable dietary choice in a future agricultural system that did minimal harm to animals, humans, and the environment. We should, in essence, eat like bonobos.

These ideas are at the core of a book proposal I'm now writing on rethinking the meaning and form of agriculture for a sustainable future. Be assured: raising and hunting animals for the purposes of consumption are not part of that future. Eating animals might be. Vegan activism has a role, but not nearly as essential a role as a new way of advocating for farming, one that would be best for the animal world and the environment.

Humans have been practicing agriculture for less than a tenth of our contemporary existence. Who's to say we got it right the first time? It's time to start over. Not eating animals raised or killed for food should be a starting point. But it's not the be all and end all of a future that's based on just food. To advocate for veganism as a singular path to justice for animals in agriculture is misguided. There so much more involved.