What we are not claiming

The argument and where it comes from

What exactly does the “2 cattle” argument claim?

The viral version, the one that shows up in reels and comment sections today, goes like this: someone who eats two cattle raised on pasture each year kills fewer animals than someone who lives vegan.

One thing is worth being clear about: that is a modern, sharper version of the idea. The original text by Steven Davis (2003) did not literally call for every person to eat two cattle a year.[2] Davis argued more generally that a food system of plants plus meat from large grazing animals could kill fewer animals in total than a purely plant-based one, because wild animals die in crop farming.

The “2 pasture-raised cattle per year” line is the social media version of what is known as the least-harm argument. We examine both levels here: the viral claim and the original calculation behind it.

The Davis calculation (2003), explained in full

Davis estimated how many wild animals die per hectare of cropland during tillage and harvest. He arrived at roughly 15 animals per hectare and based this essentially on two studies: one on wood mice in English grain fields (1993)[1] and an older one on rats in sugarcane fields in Hawaii (1971).[2]

For pastureland there was no comparable measurement. Davis simply assumed half the cropland figure, that is 7.5 animals per hectare, as an assumption.[2]

He then compared two models for the agricultural area of the United States: a purely plant-based system and a mixed system of crop farming and grazing livestock. His conclusion was that the mixed system kills fewer animals.

One point that often gets left out: Davis himself wrote explicitly that precise comparative figures are missing and that his values are rough estimates.[2]

Matheny's counter-calculation: the heart of the rebuttal

Gaverick Matheny replied in the same journal that same year.[3] His objection: Davis compares areas of equal size, even though those areas do not feed equal numbers of people. One hectare of cropland yields many times the food of one hectare of pasture.

Anyone asking which diet kills fewer animals therefore has to calculate per unit of food produced, not per unit of land. Matheny recalculated Davis' own figures accordingly, based on the amount of food, or protein, a person needs in a year. The result: using Davis' own assumptions, the plant-based diet comes out better, because it requires considerably less land per person.[3]

This error, counting per field instead of per person, remains the central weakness of the argument to this day. The later literature has confirmed Matheny's objection and sharpened it further.[5][15]

The 33-mice study, explained precisely

The most important empirical basis for this whole debate is a study by Tew and Macdonald from 1993.[1] What did they actually do?

The researchers fitted 33 wood mice in English grain fields with transmitters and followed them through the harvest. Exactly one mouse died directly from the combine harvester. Sixteen more “disappeared” in the days after the harvest.

Disappeared, at first, means only this: the signal was gone or the animal could no longer be found. The researchers attribute it mainly to predators such as owls and weasels, because the cover was gone after the harvest, and mice also move away once a field is cut. Some of these animals would have died without any harvest at all, since field mice naturally have a high mortality rate and often live only a few months.

So no reliable figure such as “millions of animals killed” can be extrapolated from this one small study. That is exactly what happened, though: Davis turned it into 15 animals per hectare,[2] and Archer (2011) later assumed as many as 100 mice per hectare.[6]

Fischer and Lamey (2018), the most thorough review of field deaths, correct Archer's assumption to roughly 1 mouse per hectare and write themselves that very little is known about the true scale.[5]

The most common questions

What is the argument?

Two pasture-raised cattle together give around 400 kilos of meat, supposedly enough for one person for a year. On pasture there is no ploughing and no harvesting, so barely any wild animals die there. On cropland, by contrast, combine harvesters, ploughs and pesticides supposedly kill a great many wild animals, for bread, tofu and vegetables.

From this it supposedly follows that eating two pasture-raised cattle kills fewer animals than living vegan. The idea behind it comes from the US animal scientist Steven Davis (2003),[2] while the “2 cattle per year” version is more recent and is spread today by carnivore and “regenerative” accounts. There is more on this in The argument and where it comes from.

Where do the figures on dead field animals come from?

Mainly from one small study: 33 wood mice fitted with transmitters in English grain fields (1993), supplemented by an older study on rats in Hawaii (1971). One mouse died directly from the combine harvester, 16 disappeared after the harvest, most likely to predators because the cover was gone.[1]

Davis turned this into 15 dead animals per hectare,[2] and Archer (2011) into 100.[6] The most thorough review corrects this to roughly 1 mouse per hectare and stresses how little is known about the true scale.[5]

For pastureland there was no measurement at all. Davis simply assumed half the cropland figure.[2] The details are in The 33-mice study, explained precisely.

Where is the error in the calculation?

Davis compared dead animals per field of cropland with dead animals per field of pasture. But a field of cropland feeds far more people than a field of pasture. That is precisely what Matheny pointed out in 2003, recalculating on the basis of food produced: using Davis' own figures, the plant-based diet then comes out better.[3]

On the scale of the difference in land: according to the global average figures from Poore and Nemecek (2018), beef from dedicated beef herds needs around 164 m² of land per 100 grams of protein, peas around 3.4 m² and tofu around 2.2 m².[4] In the carousel we rounded these to 164, 3 and 2.

One qualification matters here: this land factor does not automatically translate into a proportionally higher number of animals killed. What the land comparison shows is why comparing per hectare is misleading. To make up for the difference in land, pasture would have to be many times “cleaner” per hectare than cropland, and there is no data showing that.

Who is Germany's cropland actually farmed for?

In the 2024/25 marketing year, a good half of German grain use went into animal feed and only about a quarter became bread, pasta or cereal.[7] Around 40% of German cropland serves feed production.[8]

On top of that, more than one million hectares of silage maize grow almost exclusively for the feed trough, mostly for cattle.[19]

Soy looks similar: 77% of the global soy harvest goes into animal feed according to the Oxford analysis, around 7% goes directly into products such as tofu, soy milk, tempeh and edamame, and most of the rest becomes cooking oil.[9]

So a large share of cropland and of the grain harvest serves animal farming rather than feeding people directly. Anyone counting field deaths has to count these fields too.

Could all Germans live on pasture-raised beef?

No, there is not enough land. 84 million people times 2 cattle per year would be 168 million cattle a year. Today around 3 million cattle are slaughtered in Germany.[11]

That many grazing cattle would need, as a rough estimate, something like 5 to 10 times the area of Germany, as pasture alone.[18] What actually exists is a fraction of that: all German pastures combined, 4.7 million hectares of grassland, yield only about 2 to 4 million cattle a year.[18]

Spread across 84 million people, that is roughly one animal per person every 20 to 40 years. And only if the roughly 3.7 million dairy cows that share this grassland today were to disappear.[18]

Even in the United States, with its vast rangelands, the available pasture supports only a good quarter of today's beef production.[10] The full calculation with all assumptions is in How we did the maths.

And what do pasture-raised cattle eat in winter?

Hay and silage, which means mown grass. Depending on the technique, mowing kills 13 to 70% of the insects on the area, and with tedding and swathing more than 80%.[17]

On top of that come ground-nesting birds and fawns; estimates run up to 100,000 a year, though reliable statistics are missing.[20] So pasture is not a space free of field deaths.

What does “pasture-raised” actually mean in Germany?

According to the Thünen Institute, Germany's federal agricultural research institute, pasture fattening plays only a minor role.[12] The beef in supermarkets comes predominantly from young bulls kept indoors and from cows, mostly older dairy cows.[12] Only around 30% of all cattle have access to pasture at all.[11]

Calves from herds kept on pasture are usually separated from their mothers after 6 to 9 months and fattened indoors.[12] Slaughter often happens at 1.5 to 2.5 years, while cattle can live to about 20.[12]

With captive bolt stunning, the German federal government reports that stunning fails in 4 to 9% of cattle.[13] Slaughter directly on pasture, by rifle shot, was recorded for only around 450 animals in 2015, out of roughly 3.5 million cattle slaughtered at the time.[14]

Isn't an accident in a field just as bad as a slaughterhouse?

Wild animals do die in crop farming. That is true, and vegans should not play it down. But their death is not the purpose of the farming. That is why it can be reduced, for instance through no-till seeding, gentler mowing techniques and precision harvesting. This is exactly what the researchers working on field deaths call for.[5]

With pasture-raised beef, by contrast, the killing is not an unintended side effect. The animal is bred and kept so that it can be killed and used as food at the end.[15]

An unintended death is ethically different from a form of production in which killing the animal is planned from the outset.

There is a further point that often gets lost in this debate: veganism is not simply an exercise in counting who kills fewer animals. It is an attempt to avoid the exploitation and abuse of animals as far as is practicable. From that point of view, breeding an animal, using it and then killing it sits in a different category from an unintended death in a field, whatever the numbers turn out to be.

Is vegan crop farming really free of animal suffering?

No. Animals can be injured or killed in crop farming too, during tillage, during the harvest and through pesticides.[5]

So the question is not whether a way of eating works entirely without interference. None does. What matters is what effects different food systems have overall, and which harms can be avoided.

Is pasture-raised beef at least good for the climate?

According to current research, no. A review from the University of Oxford (“Grazed and Confused?”) concludes that carbon storage in pasture soil, even under very generous assumptions, offsets only 20 to 60% of the emissions of the grazing sector itself, and does so temporarily and reversibly.[16]

A full switch to pasture-raised beef in the United States would in fact mean around 30% more cattle and around 43% more methane.[10]

What is the conclusion?

The argument sounds plausible at first. But once you look at the data, the land use and the ethical distinction between unintended deaths and deliberate killing, the claim does not stand up to closer scrutiny.

The figures on field animals are considerably less certain than the argument suggests. Animal farming itself needs large amounts of land, and that land brings field deaths of its own. And there simply is not enough land for two pasture-raised cattle per person per year.

Field deaths are above all an argument for improving farming methods, not for killing additional animals deliberately.

Interactive calculation: could pasture-raised beef feed everyone?

This calculation is a thought experiment. It does not predict an exact future. It shows what order of magnitude appears when you apply the assumptions of the argument to an entire population. You can adjust every assumption yourself. The defaults are the values from our own calculation.[18]

Why this calculation does not describe a realistic food system

An obvious objection goes: “Nobody is asking everyone to eat two cattle." That is true, and it is exactly why this calculation is a thought experiment. It does not test whether people live this way today. It tests whether this food system could work as a general alternative for a population.

On social media the model is presented as the diet that kills fewer animals overall. A model with that claim has to be judged on whether it could be generalised. The calculation shows that there is not enough land for it in the first place.

How we did the maths[18]

The slides say: “All German pastures combined yield only about 2 to 4 million cattle a year, which is roughly one animal per person every 20 to 40 years." Here is the complete calculation with all its assumptions, so that anyone can check it.

1. Step 1: the demand.
   84 million people × 2 cattle per year = 168 million cattle for slaughter per year. For comparison: around 3 million cattle are slaughtered in Germany each year.[11]
2. Step 2: how much pasture one animal “uses up”.
   An animal raised on pasture is fattened for 18 to 24 months and requires a share of a mother cow that gives birth to it. Together that comes to roughly 2.0 to 2.6 so-called livestock unit years per animal. One livestock unit corresponds roughly to one adult bovine occupying land for one year.
3. Step 3: how many animals fit on one hectare.
   On extensive pasture around 1 livestock unit per hectare, on intensive, fertilised grassland that is mown several times up to around 2.5.
4. Step 4: the land required for everyone.
   168 million cattle × 2.0 to 2.6 livestock unit years gives, depending on stocking density, a requirement of roughly 134 to more than 400 million hectares of pasture. Germany has 35.7 million hectares in total. Depending on the assumptions, that corresponds to about 4 to 12 times the area of Germany. On the slides this is given as a rough figure of “about 5 to 10 times the area of Germany”.
5. Step 5: what the existing pastures can deliver.
   Germany has around 4.7 million hectares of permanent grassland.[8] 4.7 million hectares × 1 to 2 livestock units per hectare, divided by the roughly 2.3 livestock unit years per animal, gives about 2 to 4 million grazing cattle per year. We use at most 2 livestock units per hectare here, because the most intensive grassland is mown rather than grazed continuously. Spread across 84 million people, that is 0.024 to 0.05 animals per person per year, or roughly one animal per person every 20 to 40 years. And only if the roughly 3.7 million dairy cows that share this grassland today were to disappear.

Which assumptions did we choose particularly favourably for pasture-raised beef?

This calculation is deliberately generous towards grazing systems:

• In the upper variant we use 2.5 livestock units per hectare. That is intensively used, fertilised grassland. More intensive use also means more mowing, and therefore more animals killed on the grassland itself.
• We treat all German permanent grassland as if it were usable as pasture. In reality steep slopes, conservation areas and land that has to be mown for winter feed all drop out.
• We do not count winter feeding (hay and silage) as additional land, even though it costs land and mowing.
• We ignore the fact that 2 cattle per person would be around 400 kilos of meat a year, which is more than a kilo a day. Hardly anyone eats that on a sustained basis. Actual beef consumption is around 9.3 kilos per person per year.[21] Anyone eating “2 cattle” anyway would still be eating bread, vegetables and other crops alongside. The field deaths from crop farming would come on top.
• We do not require milk to be produced as well. As soon as dairy cows are to remain on the grassland, the result for grazing systems gets worse still.

Anyone using different stocking densities or fattening periods will arrive at somewhat different figures. That does not change the order of magnitude: the land falls short by a multiple. And every assumption we tighten makes the result worse for pasture-raised beef, not better.

Sources

1. 1Tew TE, Macdonald DW (1993). The effects of harvest on arable wood mice. Biological Conservation 65:279–283. doi.org/10.1016/0006-3207(93)90060-E
2. 2Davis SL (2003). The Least Harm Principle May Require that Humans Consume a Diet Containing Large Herbivores, Not a Vegan Diet. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 16:387–394. doi.org/10.1023/A:1025638030686
3. 3Matheny G (2003). Least Harm: A Defense of Vegetarianism from Steven Davis's Omnivorous Proposal. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 16:505–511. doi.org/10.1023/A:1026354906892
4. 4Poore J, Nemecek T (2018). Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science 360:987–992. doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216 · Data: Our World in Data
5. 5Fischer B, Lamey A (2018). Field Deaths in Plant Agriculture. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 31:409–428. doi.org/10.1007/s10806-018-9733-8
6. 6Archer M (2011). Ordering the vegetarian meal? There's more animal blood on your hands. The Conversation (with editor's note, 2018). theconversation.com
7. 7BMEL (German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture), grain supply balance, 2024/25 marketing year. bmel-statistik.de
8. 8Umweltbundesamt (German Environment Agency), questions and answers on livestock farming and nutrition. umweltbundesamt.de
9. 9Fraanje W, Garnett T (2020). Soy: food, feed, and land use change. TABLE, University of Oxford. · ourworldindata.org/soy
10. 10Hayek MN, Garrett RD (2018). Nationwide shift to grass-fed beef requires larger cattle population. Environmental Research Letters 13:084005. doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aad401
11. 11Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis, German Federal Statistical Office), agricultural census 2020 (pasture access 2019) and slaughter statistics. destatis.de
12. 12Thünen Institute (2025). Profile of beef cattle: husbandry systems in Germany.
13. 13German Bundestag (2012). Printed paper 17/10021, federal government response on stunning and slaughter. dserver.bundestag.de
14. 14Steigmiller K, Hörning B, Retz S (2017). Rifle shot on pasture: survey of veterinary authorities. Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development, 14th Scientific Conference on Organic Farming. orgprints.org
15. 15Lamey A (2007). Food Fight! Davis versus Regan on the Ethics of Eating Beef. Journal of Social Philosophy 38:331–348. · Lamey A (2019). Duty and the Beast. Cambridge University Press.
16. 16Garnett T et al. (2017). Grazed and Confused? Food Climate Research Network, University of Oxford. tabledebates.org
17. 17Humbert JY et al. (2009). Meadow harvesting techniques and their impacts on field fauna. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 130:1–8. · Humbert JY et al. (2010). Journal of Applied Entomology 134:592–599.
18. 18Our own land calculation. Assumptions: 1 to 2.5 livestock units per hectare, 18 to 24 months of fattening plus a share of a mother cow, 4.7 million hectares of grassland. Full derivation in How we did the maths.

Additional sources (used on this page only):

1. 19Deutsches Maiskomitee (German Maize Committee, 2024). Maize growing areas in Germany (silage maize for feed, around 1.1 million hectares).
2. 20Deutsche Wildtier Stiftung (German Wildlife Foundation), “Stoppt den Mähtod” campaign (estimate for fawns).
3. 21BLE (German Federal Office for Agriculture and Food, 2024). Per capita beef consumption in Germany.