Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a complicated topic, with multiple responses, but I'm only going to touch on one specific aspect of it. Reducing violence in regular farming is an admirable goal that people should strive towards. It's also worth talking about the environmental costs of ingredients like palm oil, and it's worth talking about the human costs of products like cocoa. I don't mean to diminish any of that at all, it's all worth pa…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
Factory farming is where the majority of our meat comes from, and I've seen no evidence that direct crop farming would result in more small animal lives lost than the meat industry in its current form. I also see little to no evidence that efforts to reform the meat industry are likely to succeed, the "ethical meat" movement is smaller than the vegetarian movement by most measures I can find, and far more susceptible to marketing lies (cage free eggs are not particularly much of an improvement over caged).
If you want to personally find a local butcher where you look your cow in its satisfied, well-lived eyes before it dies, and you want to argue with people about their ingredient supply chain every time you eat out or buy a frozen dinner or go to an office party, then fine, you do you. But I think it's somewhat naive to argue that's a model that can realistically work for most people. For the majority of consumers, vegetarianism would be both less expensive and less difficult.
And I just think it's strictly inaccurate to say that small animal deaths would increase if the meat industry in its current form went away. I don't see any evidence of that, not enough cattle/chicken/beef is raised on grass to make that a realistic claim.