The production of plant foods including grains, vegetables, and legumes causes significant mortality and suffering in wild animals through habitat destruction and field operations.
The welfare impacts of crop agriculture on wild animals are often absent from discussions comparing plant-based and animal-based diets. While animal agriculture causes enormous direct welfare harm to farmed animals, plant food production also causes significant wild animal suffering through habitat destruction, pesticide poisoning, and mechanical injury. This does not invalidate the welfare case for reducing animal agriculture, which causes far more total suffering per unit of nutrition. But it does underscore that truly welfare-positive food systems require attention to wild animal impacts in crop production alongside reform of animal agriculture.