It is impossible, as far as I know, to till a field to plant crops in without destroying habitat and ending lives – perhaps not those of creatures big enough to give consideration to in your eyes: insects, rodents, nesting birds, etc. – but ending lives nonetheless. Even if you opted to painstakingly remove every creature in an acre of farmland by hand to ensure no lives lost, you are still displacing them, which most environmentalists I think would say is a sort of abuse.

Paradoxically, a grass-fed cow probably does less damage – yes, areas are initially cleared and animal lives lost and displaced, but then grass is grown, a sort of biotic balance is returned to, and the cow may trample a few bugs, but there is no genocidal plowing as there is for a field of wheat. But then, you are killing and eating a cow. Animal death and suffering either way you choose – this is the paradox of eating.