Benefits of Vegan Agriculture

Food Security

Milk

Dairy has major ecological impacts including land use, erosion, water use and water pollution, green house gas emissions, deforestation, and so on.

Explore our Vegan Milkman Directory to see which companies are offering dairy-free milks, yogurt, butter, cheese, and other delicious products for delivery or pick up.

Energy

Solar For Farmers

Wind

Building Materials

Textiles & Art Supplies

Non-Lethal Pest Control

Modern farming causes animal deaths in various ways, but perhaps most deadly of all is the "pest control" methods used including:

• Hunting 

  • Elephants and other large endangered herbivores are often hunted out of revenge for destroying crops.

  • Apex Predators have long been hunted "to protect livestock", but scientists have found that hunting them actually causes worse problems down the road including population release of more problematic mesopredators and prey species, trophic cascades, and nutrient loss in local soils due to decreased biodiversity. Hunting apex predators has been shown to actually increase livestock attacks, instead of reducing them.

• Pesticide Use These chemicals can waft away from fields on the breeze or wash into waterways and bodies of water with rain or thaw water. Around the world pesticide use has toppled insect, worm, and other populations that support our planet's food web. Birds who feed on these creatures, as well as birds that feed directly on crops have also suffered staggering losses. Amphibians and reptiles likewise have suffered from their contaminated food species as well as the pesticides that leach into their skin, driving many to extinction. As a result many prey pieces have had population booms, meaning farmers have more problem insects, and rodents such as mice and rats who are able to wipe out large portions of crops. Ironically pesticides have created more problems than they were designed to solve.

• Traps

  • Cyanide Bombs These are planted in the ground with a red cap that can be mistaken for a toy or plastic trash by people and pets. They have lead to the harm and even deaths of innocent pets and people, including children.

  • Glue Traps Animals seriously injuring themselves trying to get free, tearing off their feathers, fur, and scales, or even wings and other limbs. Eventually they starve to death, often after attracting other victims who thought they could get an easy meal from the first glue trap victim.

  • Leg Hold Traps Wolves and coyotes have been found bringing food to their pack mates who can slowly starve or bleed to death in these when not checked frequently enough. They cause severe suffering, broken bones, torn ligaments, and deadly infections.

  • Mouse Traps - the most famous of these snaps so forcefully that small animals can be instantly decapitated. 

  • Snare Traps These entangle animals, usually around the leg or neck, causing suffocation, or causing loss of blood flow severe enough to kill off the trapped limb.

Manure-Free

Livestock pollute our water in many ways, but perhaps most routinely via their excrement, which is produced in far greater quantities than humans produce sewage. A single factory farm can produce more waste than a city of humans can produce in sewage, but worse, it isn't processed in the same way as sewage which can be made sanitary enough to use as drinking water.

Advocates of manure use fail to realize that manure on fields is often contaminated with livestock medications including de-wormers and other drugs which negatively impact beneficial species such as worms and dung beetles which are going extinct as agriculture expands and climate change alters everything from the seasons to soil qualities.

Mushroom Farming

Mushrooms can be use for food, medicine, bioremediation, animal-free leather, and plastic-free packaging solutions. 

Paludiculture

Seaweed Farming

Seaweed farming can help restore coastal eco-systems after the recent decades of overfishing and other destructive human activities. The practice helps sequester CO2, cleans the water, and provides shelter for small sea creatures. Unlike the fishing industry, there is more opportunity for women to make a living from this industry.

Organizations

International

• Animal Equality "is an international organization working with society, governments, and companies to end cruelty to farmed animals."

• Beyond Animal "Where investors and vegan businesses meet" "Using technology, for online funding, networking and business services, to accelerate the transition to an economy free of animal exploitation. Our vision: a kinder, cleaner, healthier world."

North America

USA

• Agriculture Fairness Alliance ® "is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit whose mission is to strategically employ lobbyists to accelerate policy changes that make sustainable plant-based food accessible to everyone at a price they can afford, empower communities to develop local plant based agriculture systems, and give farmers tools and strategy to transition from animal ag to plant based farming."

• Lobbyists 4 Good: Help Farmers Transition Away From Animal Agriculture "We will advocate for re-allocating subsidies to help farmers restructure from animal agriculture and toward growing plants intended for human consumption.
  
  Farmers would be supported in transitioning to supplying the country with vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, fungi, and other plant-based crops. The objective isn't to put anyone out of business. Rather, the objective is to provide incentives and support to transition to a food supply chain that is sustainable, healthy, and humane."