VegfestUK London 2022: Shaping up nicely

November 12th & 13th

Good news all round for vegans, businesses and influencers as VegfestUK London returns to Olympia Grand this autumn for what promises to be an emotional occasion given the 3 year gap since the last Vegfest at Olympia back in 2019.

Coupled with the Cop27 ‘Collaborating on Positions’ conference on the Balcony, the Ground Floor of the Grand sees over 200 businesses charities campaigners and sanctuaries with stalls, and an Art exhibition and display centre-piece from the Art of Compassion Project at the heart of the event.

16 hot food caterers ensure a wide choice of vegan street food for the weekend, and the 7 featured areas include talks and presentations on Fitness and Nutrition, an area dedicated to elderly vegans (V for Life), a celebrity area for Plant Powered Planet hosted by editor Karin Ridgers (and a number of our interviewees from the 2022 issues), an area dedicated to Vegan Businesses (Vegan Business Tribe Live), a Cookery Classes theatre and a small chillout stage playing ambient and chill throughout the weekend.

Expect around 10,000 to 12,000 visitors over the weekend in the Grand, a spacious venue with 15,000 sq/m available to ensure a busy and vibrant but less intense and safe event for 2022.

Tickets

Tickets are on sale from September this year, priced £10 including booking fee for a day ticket, with special offers (Buy One Get One Free & Buy One Get One Half Price) running during the autumn.

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VEGAN FEST CATALUNYA

2022 The largest outdoor vegan festival in Europe.

The Associació Vegana de Catalunya is organizing the third edition of the Vegan Fest Catalunya that will be held in the Parc de Vallparadís in Terrassa, the largest urban park in Catalonia, from 17-19 September 2022.

During the two days of the festival, there will be more than 30 different activities for the whole family: showcookings, gastronomic experiences, tastings, children’s activities, workshops and talks on sports nutrition, fast fashion, food and veganism with the participation of international and national activists. Along with dozens of exhibitors who will offer visitors gastronomic products, vegan fashion, footwear, cosmetics,... a festival 100% free of animal abuse and respectful with the environment.

“Our task as an Association” says Anna Garcia, vice president of the Vegan Association of Catalonia “is to bring as many people as possible closer to veganism, to raise awareness and educate about the reality behind the consumption of animal meat. Every day you choose to be vegan remember that you will save 4163.95 liters of water, 20.4kg of cereal, 2.78m2 of soil, the equivalent of 10kg of carbon dioxide and the life of an innocent animal”.

Vegan Fest Catalunya is sponsored by Evil Love, Duuo Shoes, Daura, Heüra, Violife, YogiTea, Santiveri, Tugas Germinados, Legumechef, Vegfund y Unión Vegetariana Española.

www.veganfest.cat

The Vegan Problem of Crop Deaths

By Jordi Casamitjana

Jordi Casamitjana, the author of the book “Ethical Vegan”, digs deep into the philosophical problem of vegans consuming products from crops that cause animals’ deaths What does it mean to be a vegan?

It means to follow the philosophy of veganism and apply it to every decision in life. And who defined the philosophy of veganism? The Vegan Society started to define it in 1944 when it created the word and finalised it in 1988 — enough time to get it right. It hasn’t changed since, and because of that, we know that a vegan seeks to exclude, as far as practicable and possible, all forms of animal exploitation for any purpose, and all forms of animal cruelty.

These days, many people are defining themselves as vegans without following the definition to the full, but even most of them know that this is a kind of appropriation of the term, which has been precisely defined

If the act was cruel, “ even if you are not a cruel person, you are responsible for that cruelty if you know about it and paid someone else to undertake the act instead of you. And this is why we, vegans, do not consume animal products created by other humans.

for decades. Who can blame them for using the term so loosely? Even the Vegan Society allows non-vegans to vote in their AGM as long as they eat what vegans eat. These “vegans”, who can be labelled as dietary vegans or plant-based people (some prefer one of these labels, while others none), know they are not following the full definition of veganism as proper vegans (also labelled ‘ethical vegans’ to ensure they are not confused with ‘dietary vegans’) do. It’s not a perfect situation, but at least all these labels allow us to communicate with each other without getting too confused.

So, what does it mean to be a vegan (or a proper vegan, or an ethical vegan) again? To seek to exclude, as far as practicable and possible, all forms of animal exploitation for any purpose in all decisions, and all forms of animal cruelty too.

There are no different types of ethical vegans depending on which animals they avoid exploiting. Veganism covers them all. The dogs and cats so many people claim to love, but also the bugs and creepy crawlies many people say they hate. Really, all of them? Yes, all, as the definition uses the term ‘animal’ meaning members of the Animal Kingdom (not meaning “pets” or vertebrates) and the unequivocal explicit position of the Vegan Society in rejecting honey and shellac (wax taken from some insects) ensures that this interpretation is clear. But what does it mean to be cruel? Ah, this is a little bit more complicated.

Torturing an animal as a sadistic exercise is clearly a cruel act, nobody would question that. If you do that, you would be a cruel person doing cruel things to innocent victims. Killing animals without torturing them for the same sadistic reasons would equally be considered cruel because it is not only about causing pain and suffering but also about taking someone’s life (and this is why murder is not less of a crime than torture). But what about letting animals die? Well, if you were in charge of looking after the animals and they die because of your neglect, perhaps you may not be a cruel person, but your neglect equates to cruelty (and this is why most modern animal protection laws consider it is a crime to cause suffering deliberately or recklessly by neglect).

But what about if you were not in charge of looking after the animals who died? Ah, that may be another story. If you were not looking after the animals and the animals suffered and die not because of you, but because of some other humans, you may not be guilty of cruelty, but they will be. What if you are complicit, somehow? What if you pay someone to act in a way that you know will cause suffering and death to another sentient being unnecessarily? Then, I think you cannot defend your innocence anymore. If the act was cruel, even if you are not a cruel person, you are responsible for that cruelty if you know about it and paid someone else to undertake the act instead of you. And this is why we, vegans, do not consume animal products created by other humans.

It all boils down to two things: knowing the act is cruel, and indirectly participating in it by engaging someone else to do it on your behalf. Vegans who know an act is cruel because it causes unnecessary suffering and death to another sentient being, but nevertheless engage other people to commit such an act by buying their products derived from it, would be in full transgression of the main principles of veganism. Vegans in these situations are not that different from plantbased people or dietary vegans who insist they are full vegans. Both are in transgression of fundamental principles of veganism, and if this was not an accident and they insist on not changing their behaviour or attitude, we can say the label “vegan” may have been erroneously chosen to describe both.

But here is the tricky bit. Eating vegetables, fruits, pulses, grains or other plants not grown in a veganic way, or eating any processed food derived from them, causes unnecessary animal suffering and death because the non-veganic farming practices cause crops deaths either by guaranteed accidents (rodents, molluscs, worms or insects crushed during ploughing or harvesting) or by design (clearing wild land to plant crops or using pesticides specifically created to kill sentient beings). Therefore, those who know that, but pay a farmer to produce the food they eat by the methods that cause such suffering and death, may be as guilty of misusing the label ‘vegan’ as those who used it only because they follow a vegan diet. The truth is that most of those self-defined ethical vegans eat plantbased food cultivated in non-veganic traditional crops. In other words, looking at it this way, most vegans (not all) may misuse the label vegan.

Is that right? Isn’t this what veganphobes and vegan-sceptics often say when they want to criticise and ridicule vegans? Isn’t that the argument they most use to say that we are hypocritical? Yes, it is. So are we, ethical vegans, hypocritical? Are crops deaths to produce vegan food significant enough? Can they really be avoided, and therefore not trying to avoid them may be a transgression of vegan principles? I self-define as an ethical vegan (I even wrote a book called “Ethical Vegan”), and I will try to answer these questions in this article. I am not quite sure I will manage it to the satisfaction of everyone, though — but I will try.

Are animal deaths in vegan food production significant?

Denying the problem is not a solution. I know it is tempting to say that whatever argument a veganphobe will throw at you to criticise you is bound to be wrong because we tend to believe that short-sighted veganphobes are those who use the wrong arguments while enlightened vegans are those who use the right arguments. If we are so insecure about veganism that we need to cover our ears every time someone criticises us, what does this say about the strength of our convictions? Let’s not fear the argument itself and look at it objectively. Do animals die during crop cultivation? Are these deaths common? Are these deaths widespread? Are these deaths more numerous to produce the food that vegans eat than the food that carnists eat?

Ok, let’s listen to what vegan sceptics say. Chris Kresser, the co-founder of the California Center for Functional Medicine and founder of Kresser Institute, claims that 7.3 billion animals are killed every year from plant agriculture if we count rodents, birds killed by pesticides, fishes killed by fertiliser reaching the water, and reptiles/amphibians killed by eating insects contaminated with toxic pesticides. Is he wrong? He cites the study titled “Field Deaths in Plant Agriculture” authored by Bob Fischer & Andy Lamey from Texas State University and published in the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics in 2018. However, when you read the article, you will find that these authors say that the estimate of 7.3 billion is clearly too high.

Ok, Kresser got the numbers wrong, but does this mean that the number of deaths in each category he mentions is zero? Let’s look at the death of mice during harvesting, for instance. There is a study that has attempted to quantify this. A 2004 study looked at the effect of wheat and corn harvesting in central Argentina comparing the rodent populations of grass mice in crop fields, regions bordering the fields and the wider surrounding area. Interestingly, they found that the number of mice in fields substantially decreased after harvest but substantially increased in the border regions. They could not find a significant difference between the three habitats in terms of the disappearance of mice, suggesting that mice moved away from the fields that were being harvested, rather than died during the harvesting. Does this mean that no mouse died? No, it does not. It probably means that any numbers cited as vertebrate deaths are likely to be overinflated, but it doesn’t mean the numbers are zero.

In 2003, Steve Davis published an article titled “The least harm principle may require that humans consume a diet containing large herbivores, not a vegan diet.” In it, he claims that 7.5 animals are killed per hectare in ruminant pasture and that 15 are killed on land used to produce crops. In 2011, Mike Archer wrote an article titled “Ordering the vegetarian meal? There’s more animal blood on your hands” claiming that wheat “ They could not find a significant

difference between the three habitats in terms of the disappearance of mice, suggesting that mice moved away from the fields that were being harvested, rather than died during the harvesting.

standard plant-based agriculture “ kills animals on purpose too. It kills animals that are eating their produce. It kills birds, rabbits or rodents shooting them, snaring them, or using dogs, and it kills invertebrates using poison. It considers them all as “pests” and deliberately kills them using “pesticides” or euphemistically labelled “wildlife control” methods. These deaths are not side effects. The victims of pesticides are not collateral damage.

production is responsible for 25 times more deaths than grass-fed beef because in Australia every four years on average there are mouse plagues where a huge number of mice overrun the fields, and farmers then kill them all with poison.

The famous vegan activist Earthling Ed wrote an article on the Surgeactivism website debunking both claims. Using UN data stating that 1,000 kilograms of protein can be produced on one hectare of land that is growing plants but would take 10 hectares of land for grassfed beef to produce the same amount, and using USDA data, Ed shows that the claims plant-based diets cause more animal deaths than animal-based diets are false, as most crops are actually cultivated to feed the animals of the animal agriculture industry. He rightly states all the animals who die during the cultivation of animal feed should be added to the carnist tally, not the vegan tally. Ed writes, “[A] nimal farmers use around 1.7 times more wheat and so would be responsible for around 1.7 times more mice being killed for wheat production alone. Around 80 per cent of beef sold in domestic supermarkets in Australia comes from animals that were grazing for about 85 to 90 per cent of their lives, but then are fattened up on feedlots for the last 10 to 15 per cent. On top of that, beef can still be sold as grassfed if the cows have spent fewer than 70 days being fed grain, which, because cows are often slaughtered at around 18 months old, is within that 10 to 15 per cent time period.”

But Ed is not claiming that plant crops are not causing animal deaths. He is just saying that this is not the vegans’ fault, and the animal agriculture industry causes many more deaths.

The Vegan Society has the same view. Samantha Calvert, Head of Communications at The Vegan Society, told Plant Based News, “Most vegans are fully aware that it is not possible to live without causing harm to other animals. However, many animals that are used for meat and milk need to have additional food grown for them. This is particularly the case in zero-grazed systems but even where animals are allowed to graze this may not be sufficient for all of their needs. For every 100 calories fed to animals, we receive only 12 calories by eating their flesh and milk. If you want to reduce your overall impact on animal suffering and death — as well as reducing your food-related carbon footprint — then veganism is the best ‘off-the-shelf’ diet to choose. If you eat animal products then even more animals will be killed to feed you. Veganism does not eliminate the suffering and death of other animals but it is the best option to dramatically reduce it.”

I agree with this view — and that’s why I am a vegan — but for an ethical vegan, the actual number should not matter (unless you are an obsessed pure-utilitarian). Vegans don’t eat the honey produced by fewer bees. They don’t eat the eggs from the smallest chicken farms. They don’t eat the lambs from the tiniest sheep flocks. The death of one bee, one chick or one lamb should be one too many for an ethical vegan. We do not consume any of these products irrespective of the number of animals harmed or killed. We do it as a matter of principle, and because we do not accept that “killing fewer,” or giving a “better life” before the kill, is an excuse for animal exploitation. And this also explains why ethical vegans do not