They Don’t Kill What They Can’t Sell.
"I think it’s really silly how people expect veganism to make an impact on the consumption of animal products at all as it’s such a small percentage of the population that even follows that life style." […]
Down at the slaughterhouse, they aren’t running a charity: you’d be amazed at how rapidly the market responds to even a short-term reduction of demand for a particular type of meat… such as happens every time there’s a contaminated meat scandal.
When people smoke fewer cigarettes, companies produce fewer cigarettes; when fewer people smoke, likewise, the same number of plants don’t get grown, nor manufactured into tobacco products.
Before 5% of people decided to quit smoking, 1% of people decided to quit smoking. If you had been part of that first 1%, you might have been regarded as eccentric —in fact, you might have regarded yourself as eccentric, too.
You know how people try to discredit veganism by saying Hitler was a vegetarian? Astoundingly, there was something parallel in the Nazis being anti-tobacco (at a time when Americans and Brits were encouraging their soldiers to smoke). So, yes, there was a time when being anti-tobacco was regarded strangely, also.
Of course, nobody quits smoking to save the lives of the tobacco plants; veganism has an ethical (and ecological) dimension above and beyond smoking. However, I’m merely answering your question here: the bottom line is the bottom line, and that means money. If people don’t buy cigarettes, the same factory will make something else instead; because meat has such a short shelf-life, the industry respond very quickly to changes in demand (increases for holidays, decreases for disease outbreaks, etc.) —so, no, it doesn’t take long for those decisions to have real effects.
Will vegans ever be 5% of the population anywhere? We’ve got to get to 1% first —however, you can visit a country like Taiwan, and see what a difference it makes to have a significant vegan minority around. Veganism is part of the politics and culture of our times; it is part of political and cultural change in our times. The same could have been said of “eccentrics" who heaped scorn on tobacco around 50 years ago, I suppose.
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