Debate Over Animals Killed in Crop Harvesting
Steven Davis, a professor of animal science at Oregon State University, argues that the least harm principle does not require giving up all meat. Davis states that a diet containing beef from grass-fed ruminants such as cattle would kill fewer animals than a vegetarian diet, particularly when one takes into account animals killed by agriculture. This conclusion has been criticized by Jason Gaverick Matheny (founder of in vitro meat organization New Harvest) because it calculates the number of animals killed per acre (instead of per consumer). He claims that when the numbers are adjusted, Davis' argument shows veganism as perpetrating the least harm. Davis' argument has also been criticized by Andy Lamey for being based on only two studies that may not represent commercial agricultural practices. When differentiating between animals killed by farm machinery and those killed by other animals, he claims the studies again show veganism to do the "least harm".
Read more about this topic: Ethics Of Eating Meat
Famous quotes containing the words debate, animals, killed and/or crop:
“Like man and wife who nightly keep
Inconsequent debate in sleep
As they dream side by side.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Radio put technology into storytelling and made it sick. TV killed it. Then you were locked into somebody else’s sighting of that story. You no longer had the benefit of making that picture for yourself, using your imagination. Storytelling brings back that humanness that we have lost with TV. You talk to children and they don’t hear you. They are television addicts. Mamas bring them home from the hospital and drag them up in front of the set and the great stare-out begins.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)
“The prairies were dust. Day after day, summer after summer, the scorching winds blew the dust and the sun was brassy in a yellow sky. Crop after crop failed. Again and again the barren land must be mortgaged for taxes and food and next year’s seed. The agony of hope ended when there was not harvest and no more credit, no money to pay interest and taxes; the banker took the land. Then the bank failed.”
—Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968)