ABSTRACT
Chapter 5, “Agriculture and the environment,” discusses the empirical dimensions of food, animals, and the environment that apply to all agriculture, including a discussion of the scale of animal, environmental, and human impacts, as well as the concept of conversion. This helps us to understand the impacts of agriculture: what kinds of harm it causes and in what proportions. While this chapter has separate sections on animals, the environment, and humans, these categories interact in many important ways. Food agriculture involves clearing land; using pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides; changing carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles; and adding and removing nutrients from the soil. This affects humans, nonhumans, and the environment alike. Some sectors, such as transportation, impact all three areas as well. For example, transportation affects farmed animals when they are moved, affects wild animals through infrastructure, pollution, and carbon emissions, and also affects humans through air pollution and carbon emissions. We also discuss how disadvantaged groups often suffer these impacts disproportionately.
