a newish strong anti-veg*n argument that ive heard passed around: harvesting grains/vegetables from fields hurts a lot of small rodents and other wildlife, thus making eating from fields less ethical than eating from barns
this is worth thinking about if youre veg*n
this updates me significantly towards eating cow being generally fine, especially given my problem with meat eating being about the factory conditions rather than meat itself
im fine with killing animals, which also blunts the original argument i guess
my interaction with farms has largely been in driving past them - ive not dealt with agriculture firsthand outside of gardening and the neighbors pet chickens
but ive seen a lot more cows spending their time in pastures than ive seen anything else
a counterargument: lots of farm animals are fed field-grown grains, harvested the same way as everything else
but not all! cows in particular are more likely to eat wild scrub in areas like the american west, where there isnt enough water to support fields