My first thought beyond "wow, what total bull" is that there is a serious philosophical battle that needs to be waged, or vacuities like "the dignity of wheat" will persist. Basically we need to get down to things broadly termed qualia - feelings, emotions, "subject experience" like color and so on. Daniel Dennett is a good place to start."Qualia" is a product of the computation power of the brain. So wheat does not have a nervous system, ergo has no computational power, ergo has no "qualia", subjective experience, the feeling of pain and so on. Once we establish all subject experience, all qualia, as a phenomenon of computation then cockamamie like the "dignity of all living things" will go away. Which, by the way, a "living thing" is roughly when you get down to it a molecule that can copy itself, so crystals are "living" too. Shall we now have a discussion on tax payer money about how much pain a crystal feels when we cut it?