Does plant farming kill animals too?
The short answer
Yes, crop farming does kill wild animals, and honest accounting should include that. But most crops are grown to feed livestock, so a diet with meat generally involves more crop farming, not less.
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Sample data. The figures and sources on this page are demonstration records showing how evidence will be presented. They are approximate and have not yet been through our review process. Read about how we will verify evidence.
The claim
“Harvesting crops kills mice, birds and insects. So a vegan diet kills animals as well, maybe more than eating grass-fed beef.”
Why this question comes up
- It is true that crop harvesting kills field animals.
- A widely shared calculation claimed plant agriculture kills more animals than pasture beef.
What the evidence says
Estimates of field animal deaths from harvesting are highly uncertain; the most cited figures came from small studies and have been challenged for over-counting.
Because animals convert feed inefficiently, producing a calorie of meat from grain-fed animals requires several calories of crops, so the field deaths attributable to meat are usually higher per calorie.
Pasture-only beef avoids feed crops but uses far more land, with its own effects on wildlife through habitat loss.Source 1: Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumersSource 2: FAOSTAT: Crops and livestock products — producing animals / slaughtered
Weighing the claim
What is true about the claim
- Plant agriculture harms wild animals, through harvesting, pesticides and habitat conversion. This is not usually acknowledged in vegan advocacy.
What may be misleading
- The comparison only favours meat if you ignore the crops used as feed, which is most crops.
- Field death estimates are so uncertain that confident claims in either direction are not justified.
What remains uncertain
- Actual field animal mortality rates, which vary by crop, harvesting method and region and are poorly studied.
Bottom line
Farming of any kind harms wild animals. Because most crops feed livestock, reducing animal products tends to reduce, not increase, that harm, but the numbers are uncertain.
Evidence strength
Why this rating: The direction follows from feed conversion data, but the underlying field mortality estimates are weak.
Some relevant studies exist but they are small, indirect, short-term or conflicting. The direction is plausible; the size of the effect is not settled.
Claims behind this answerEach claim has its own record with rating, methodology and sources.
Livestock uses around three-quarters of the world's agricultural land while supplying under a fifth of its calories.
Most farmland feeds animals, not people directly. That land delivers a relatively small share of our food.
Around 80 billion land animals are slaughtered for food each year worldwide, the large majority of them chickens.
About ten land animals per person per year, most of them chickens. Fish are not counted individually, but likely add far more.
Sources
Each source links to our record of what it found, its limitations and what we used it for, with a link to the original.
- 1Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers
Joseph Poore, Thomas Nemecek (2018). Science.
- 2FAOSTAT: Crops and livestock products — producing animals / slaughtered
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024). FAOSTAT database.