Vegan+Action


 * // Vegan Action // . N.p., 2001. Web. 15 Sep. 2010. []. **

Animal agriculture takes a devastating toll on the earth. It is an inefficient way of producing food, since feed for farm animals requires land, water, fertilizer, and other resources that could otherwise have been used directly for producing human food.

Animal agriculture's dependence on higher yields accelerates topsoil erosion on our farmlands, rendering land less productive for crop cultivation, and forcing the conversion of wilderness to grazing and farm lands.

Animal waste from massive feedlots and factory farms is a leading cause of pollution in our groundwater and rivers.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has linked animal agriculture to a number of other environmental problems, including: contamination of aquatic ecosystems, soil, and drinking water by manure, pesticides, and fertilizers; acid rain from ammonia emissions; greenhouse gas production; and depletion of aquifers for irrigation.

Projections have estimated that the 1992 food supply could have fed about 6.3 billion people on a purely vegetarian diet, 4.2 billion people on a 85% vegetarian diet, or 3.2 billion people on a 75% vegetarian diet. The consumption of animal fats and proteins has been linked to heart disease, colon and lung cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes, kidney disease, hypertension, obesity, and a number of other debilitating conditions. Vegan foods, such as whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and beans, are low in fat, contain no cholesterol, and are rich in fiber and nutrients. Vegans can get all the protein they need from legumes (e.g., beans, tofu, peanuts) and grains (e.g., rice, corn, whole wheat breads and pastas); calcium from broccoli, kale, collard greens, tofu, fortified juices and soymilks; iron from chickpeas, spinach, pinto beans, and soy products; and B12 from fortified foods or supplements. Despite the common belief that drinking milk or eating eggs does not kill animals, commercially-raised dairy cows and egg-laying chickens, whether factory-farmed or "free range", are slaughtered when their production rates decline. Living on wire floors that deform their feet, in cages so tiny they cannot stretch their wings, and covered with excrement from cages above them, these chickens suffer lameness, bone disease, and obsessive pecking, which is curbed by searing the beaks off young chicks. Hatcheries have no use for male chicks, so they are killed by suffocation, decapitation, gassing, or crushing. But when a dairy cow delivers a male calf, the calf is sold to a veal farm within days of birth, where he is tethered to a stall, deprived of food and exercise, and soon slaughtered for meat. Because it is unprofitable to keep cows alive once their milk production declines, dairy cows are usually slaughtered at 5 years of age. Today's farms are not like the ones most of us learned about in school; they are mechanized factories where an animal's welfare is of little concern compared to profit. At a time when 10 billion animals suffer in U.S. factory farms every year, when heart disease is the leading cause of death among Americans, and when animal agriculture is the single largest source of soil and water pollution, there may be no more effective route to decreasing suffering in the world than by promoting veganism.