8 years ago
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Will the worst bird flu outbreak in US history finally make us reconsider factory farming chicken?
The outbreak has required that farmers resort to fire-extinguisher foam to kill off infected flocks. Can commercial farms protect themselves, or is US chicken farming fundamentally unsustainable?
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http://www.theguardian.com
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US Senate Meeting Highlights Dramatic Impact of Avian Flu
The US Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry held a hearing recently on the impact of avian flu on the poultry sector, listening to a variety of witnesses and stakeholders... -
Human Food Safety Not Likely Threatened By Costly Avian Flu
The highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5 epidemic spread to domestic poultry by migratory birds may have burned out without getting anywhere near the human food supply, which was said to be an extremely low possibility in the first place. No new detections of avian flu have occurred... -
Chickadee is nation’s first songbird with avian flu
A [Minnesota] chickadee found in Ramsey County is the second wild bird in Minnesota — and the first songbird in the nation — to be confirmed as having highly pathogenic avian influenza... -
Diverse avian flu strains hit UK, Taiwan, South Africa
Several varieties of avian influenza viruses have recently struck farms in the United Kingdom, Taiwan, and South Africa, affecting poultry species ranging from chickens to ostriches, according to reports today...
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Same basic problem in any monoculture "crop". By virtue of having less variety, population and habitat resilience to disease, blights etc. drops to the point where large swaths of area can be impacted by what would otherwise be a minor event. Add in mechanization via transport of these species and boom: virus transport effectively exceeds the population's ability to adapt and/or prevents it from dying out locally. Bear in mind that this whole system is also dependent on factors that cannot be controlled in the short term i.e. climate.
Add in that this is not the first time this has happened; check out how droughts in the Midwest in 2012 and 2013 raised the cost of food across the board because of a poor corn harvest, which led into shortages of feed for livestock. There were people that got rich by trading in pork and beef futures because butchering of the too many mouths dropped prices in the short term, and then lower livestock availability caused the price to jump. The whole system is incredibly volatile.
I'm really not sure if this can be fixed. It would be nice if everyone was able to have a few chickens in their yards,but that might cut into big companies profits..So I just don't see a fix people would be happy with.