How Many Animals Are Killed When Humans Harvest Plants?

Does farming veggies kill animals? In short, yes—farming plants sometimes harms animals. Pesticides poison insects and wildlife, tractors strike small animals in fields, and land clearing destroys animals’ homes.

But here’s the part that often gets left out: Eating plants still causes far less harm than eating animals.

Being vegan isn’t about perfection. It’s about reducing suffering as much as possible—and when you look at the full picture, eating plants does exactly that.

Why Eating Animals Causes More Harm, by a Long Shot

Most people don’t realize that plant agriculture and animal agriculture are closely connected.

Farmers grow most corn and soy to feed animals raised for meat, eggs, and dairy.

When humans eat animals:

• The meat, egg, and dairy industries breed, confine, and slaughter animals
• Farmers grow massive amounts of crops to feed those animals
• Crop production for animal feed displaces wildlife and kills small animals in fields

Eating animals adds an extra step—and that extra step costs countless lives.

How Many Animals Do We Kill Every Year?

In the United States alone, the meat, dairy, and egg industries kill:

• about 39 million cows
• about 121 million pigs
• roughly 9 billion chickens

We should appreciate these animals for who they are, not for the taste of their flesh. When not raised for food, cows are devoted mothers, pigs enjoy listening to music, and chickens sing to their chicks before they even hatch.

What About Animals Killed During Plant Harvesting?

The meat, egg, and dairy industries demand enormous quantities of plants to feed cows, chickens, and pigs. Farmers plow more land, run more machinery, and spray more chemicals to supply those industries.

Raising animals for food requires far more crops than if we all ate plants directly. When humans eat our fellow animals, they consume the plants fed to those animals plus the animals themselves.

To spare the most animals possible, cut out the middlecow and eat plants.

Breeding and Feeding Animals Just to Kill Them Fuels World Hunger

Animal agriculture doesn’t just harm animals, it also wastes food on a massive scale.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota found that 36% of global crop calories go to farmed animals, not humans. If we kill cows and bulls for their flesh, humans receive only 12% of the original calories. When we eat plants directly, farmers need fewer fields—and fewer animals die as a result. So, being vegan uses far less land and requires drastically fewer plants overall.

If humans ate plants directly instead of feeding them to animals, researchers estimate that available food calories could increase by up to 70%. The crops freed up by this shift could feed an additional 4 billion people—more than enough to support expected population growth through 2050.

Producing meat also requires staggering amounts of grain. It takes about 13 pounds of grain to produce just one pound of meat. That grain could help feed the hundreds of millions of humans—many of them children—who don’t have enough to eat.

Today, malnutrition affects roughly 870 million humans worldwide and contributes to the deaths of more than 2.5 million children under age five every year. Feeding crops to animals instead of to humans makes this crisis worse.

So, What’s the Best Answer?

With 8 billion humans on our planet who need to eat, no single food system can avoid harm entirely. But some cause far less suffering than others.

Being vegan remains the most effective way individuals can reduce harm to humans, our fellow animals, and the planet we share.

If you’re ready to learn more, get a free guide to going vegan. Already vegan? Sharpen your conversations and cut through animal industry myths with our free debate kits.