Animal-free agriculture

Vegan organic farming methods do not use animal products or by-products, such as blood meal, fish products, bone meal, feces, or other animal-origin matter because the production of these materials is viewed as either harming animals directly, or as associated with the exploitation and consequent suffering of animals.[1][9][10] Some of these materials are by-products of animal husbandry, created during the process of cultivating animals for the production of meat, milk, skins, furs, entertainment, labor, or companionship. The sale of such by-products decreases expenses and increases profit for those engaged in animal husbandry and therefore helps support the animal husbandry industry, an outcome vegans find unacceptable.[9]

Vegan organic growers maintain soil fertility using green manures, cover crops, green wastes, composted vegetable matter, and minerals. Some vegan gardeners may supplement this with human urine from vegans (which provides nitrogen) and 'humanure' from vegans, produced from compost toilets.[9]

Veganic organic farmers take measures such as refraining from making large disturbances in the soil of the land and cultivating a variety of plants in the ground. This form of farming "encompasses a respect for the animals, the environment, and human health."[1] Some of the plant-based techniques used in veganic agriculture include mulch, compost, chipped branched wood, crop rotation and others.[9][11]

Farms certified as biocyclic vegan use preventative methods to manage insects. If these fail, however, the label allows them to use insecticides[12] such as Bacillus thuringiensis,[13] which starves larvae to death.[14]

Vegan organic farming is much less common than organic farming. In 2019, there were 63 self-declared vegan organic farms in the United States,[15] and 16,585 certified organic farms.[16]

• The World Conservation Union's Red List of Threatened Species reports that most of the world's threatened species are experiencing habitat loss as a result of livestock production conducted through animal agriculture.[17]
• Center for Science in the Public Interest releases Six Arguments for a Greener Diet that found that a plant-rich diet "leads to much less food poisoning, water pollution, air pollution, global warming."[17]

• Research published in the journal Nature Communications finds that vegan diets have the best land use and are the only way to feed the global population by 2050.[18]
• The World Resources Institute published the report: Shifting Diets for a Sustainable Food Future which showed that if people who consume large amounts of meat and dairy changed to diets with more plant-based meals could reduce agriculture's pressure on the environment.[19]

• University of Edinburgh researchers find that animal farming is the leading cause of food waste as it is responsible for the most losses of all harvested crops on Earth (40%) due to secondary consumption.[20][21]
• Forbes magazine publishes a compilation of recent vegan and plant-based business successes noting that vegan living is becoming more a norm because of its positive impact on sustainability.[22]

• Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences find that a vegan shift would increase the US food supply by a third, eliminating all of the losses due to food waste and feeding all Americans as well as roughly 390,000,000 more.[23]
• A Harvard study found that shifting all beef production in the U.S. to pastured, grass-fed systems would require 30% more cattle, increase beef's methane emissions by 43%, and would require much more land than is available.[24]

• A report from the Humane Party determines that vegan-organic agriculture can be 4,198% more productive than animal-based agriculture in the amount of food produced per acre.[25]
• Veganic farmer Will Bonsall told The Guardian that most vegetables are "very un-vegan" due to being grown using inputs of animal-based products.[26]