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The way chickens are raised today, you'd be insane to raise chickens. Chickens of the old, roamed the grass, picking little shits that no one could find or eat

The way chickens are raised today, you'd be insane to raise chickens. Chickens of the old, roamed the grass, picking little shits that no one could find or eat, growing slowly but steadily, surviving and mating. Today, they gorge on soybean-B12 juice that was raised on ex-rainforest area. It's highly unsustainable and ridiculously bad investment. Bill Gates has previously written about meat and its sustainability and has shown serious lack of understanding of how it all works on a global scale. Yes, chickens being raised on a field filled with little nutrients only chickens can see is exactly the same as cows being raised in an environment where grass grows around them and climate is pretty stable. That's not the way Africa or India will get its dosage of meat, and it cannot be done in any way other than massive soybean way (the best source of protein and growth for all living animals). When we get Africans or Indians on the luxurious flesh, we'll never get them off the bandwagon and the unsustainability of the process will ruin more rainforests, more oceans, more living species and more life. Absolutely disappointed with Bill. I guess he's totally oblivious to the dead oceans zones that are caused primarily by animal agriculture. Or that 90% of the rainforest is being cut primarily for soybean, that is primarily given to the animals in the animal agriculture. Can't believe a guy was solving a problem this huge and he seems to still be on the meat bandwagon.

stinkytaco 10y ago
I'm not sure you followed the article. He's arguing for small scale, not large scale investment. Raising chickens primarily for their eggs, and secondarily for their meat. Indeed, he appears to be advocating "chickens of old" as you call them, rather than industrial operations to increase self-sufficiency. Because they continually produce food, are largely self-sufficient, living off calories otherwise rejected and because they are small and inexpensive, chicken's are an excellent investment on a small scale.
- spoofball 10y ago
  But that is a hundred year old story. I can't see what is so insightful about that. (small scale is efficient for local needs) What he's not mentioning at all is that the Africans and Indians will get conditioned by meat. Their cultures will grow on meat. I saw it happen to my native country. When meat was just a once in a month occasion, after just 50 years, everything else is considered food for the poor and flesh is in every meal. Why would we want to repeat the same mistake? Condition new 2+ billion people on meat, increase their desire for luxury and let the capitalism meet the demand? It's absolutely impossible that small scale chicken farms meet the demand of 2 billion people and we all know that Brazil will start cutting more of the Amazon (it's already doing that) to raise more soybean to get that newly discovered stream of money. One can do the calculation for cattle, and you'll see that grass-fed cattle barely meets 10% of the current demand. I'm quite baffled by the lack of mention of the long-term consequences in the article. Not only will they get richer, but shifting their culture from mainly plant-based to meat-based will have a huge impact on the world. Just look at China and what happened in the last 60 years. From a country that had only 4kg of meat per person per year, they now have 50kg - just recently their government organization urged their people to eat less meat. (Chinese ocean floor is practically dead) Not to mention this: http://globalfarmernetwork.org/2016/06/open-letter-to-the-eu-parliament-from-a-kenyan-farmer-leave-africa-alone/ http://globalfarmernetwork.org/2016/06/open-letter-to-the-eu... Why wouldn't Europe give GMO to Africa? Why wouldn't everyone lobby for more plants in Africa? Because we want to sell that unsustainable dairy, eggs and meat.
  - stinkytaco 10y ago
    Well, aside from the cultural elitism here (don't "teach" them about this), I think what you are arguing will happen is almost unavoidable in a globalized world. Withholding out of concern for the environment is simply entrenching the existing social order. It's a very "white mans burden" thing to argue. Additionally, the best response is not to withhold meat, which they will no doubt come to anyway, but to offer a sustainable and realistic alternative. You can't stop the flow of global food, but you can make it cheaper and more sustainable. And cheaper will generally win. Finally, you simply made a huge jump from "let's get them a chicken to live on" to "it's a terrible investment because commercial meat production is bad". This is not an obvious jump or foregone conclusion.
    - hugh4 10y ago
      What's wrong with entrenching the existing social order?
      - stinkytaco 10y ago
        If you're the wealthy, meat eating country, with a higher standard of living, longer lifespan and lower infant mortality, nothing, I guess.
        hugh4 10y ago
        Exactly.
    - spoofball 10y ago
      > This is not an obvious jump or foregone conclusion. You said it yourself it's unavoidable. I'm not advocating for withholding, I'm just baffled by the call for sustainability when it isn't. You can't grow 50kg of continuous meat consumption in your backyard - that's something only industry can do. One has to wait for the chickens to grown and then at one moment in time consume them. "white mans burden" - is this the main argument for everything? from white guilt to whatever? I just commented on how it won't lead to long-term sustainability. It is experimentally proven in China and plenty of federal countries of India.
kenshaw 10y ago
This is a clear troll. Absolutely nothing said by this poster has anything to do with the actual article. Additionally, the user account is only 13 days old. Moderators, please kill this account and postings.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- davidcollantes 10y ago
  I don't see the troll on it. He expressed his points of view, related to the article. I agree that meat isn't a long lasting solution (I eat meat, by the way). I think plants agriculture is. Chickens for short term? Yes.

stinkytaco 10y ago

I'm not sure you followed the article. He's arguing for small scale, not large scale investment. Raising chickens primarily for their eggs, and secondarily for their meat. Indeed, he appears to be advocating "chickens of old" as you call them, rather than industrial operations to increase self-sufficiency. Because they continually produce food, are largely self-sufficient, living off calories otherwise rejected and because they are small and inexpensive, chicken's are an excellent investment on a small scale.

spoofball 10y ago
But that is a hundred year old story. I can't see what is so insightful about that. (small scale is efficient for local needs) What he's not mentioning at all is that the Africans and Indians will get conditioned by meat. Their cultures will grow on meat. I saw it happen to my native country. When meat was just a once in a month occasion, after just 50 years, everything else is considered food for the poor and flesh is in every meal. Why would we want to repeat the same mistake? Condition new 2+ billion people on meat, increase their desire for luxury and let the capitalism meet the demand? It's absolutely impossible that small scale chicken farms meet the demand of 2 billion people and we all know that Brazil will start cutting more of the Amazon (it's already doing that) to raise more soybean to get that newly discovered stream of money. One can do the calculation for cattle, and you'll see that grass-fed cattle barely meets 10% of the current demand. I'm quite baffled by the lack of mention of the long-term consequences in the article. Not only will they get richer, but shifting their culture from mainly plant-based to meat-based will have a huge impact on the world. Just look at China and what happened in the last 60 years. From a country that had only 4kg of meat per person per year, they now have 50kg - just recently their government organization urged their people to eat less meat. (Chinese ocean floor is practically dead) Not to mention this: http://globalfarmernetwork.org/2016/06/open-letter-to-the-eu-parliament-from-a-kenyan-farmer-leave-africa-alone/ http://globalfarmernetwork.org/2016/06/open-letter-to-the-eu... Why wouldn't Europe give GMO to Africa? Why wouldn't everyone lobby for more plants in Africa? Because we want to sell that unsustainable dairy, eggs and meat.
- stinkytaco 10y ago
  Well, aside from the cultural elitism here (don't "teach" them about this), I think what you are arguing will happen is almost unavoidable in a globalized world. Withholding out of concern for the environment is simply entrenching the existing social order. It's a very "white mans burden" thing to argue. Additionally, the best response is not to withhold meat, which they will no doubt come to anyway, but to offer a sustainable and realistic alternative. You can't stop the flow of global food, but you can make it cheaper and more sustainable. And cheaper will generally win. Finally, you simply made a huge jump from "let's get them a chicken to live on" to "it's a terrible investment because commercial meat production is bad". This is not an obvious jump or foregone conclusion.
  - hugh4 10y ago
    What's wrong with entrenching the existing social order?
    - stinkytaco 10y ago
      If you're the wealthy, meat eating country, with a higher standard of living, longer lifespan and lower infant mortality, nothing, I guess.
      - hugh4 10y ago
        Exactly.
  - spoofball 10y ago
    > This is not an obvious jump or foregone conclusion. You said it yourself it's unavoidable. I'm not advocating for withholding, I'm just baffled by the call for sustainability when it isn't. You can't grow 50kg of continuous meat consumption in your backyard - that's something only industry can do. One has to wait for the chickens to grown and then at one moment in time consume them. "white mans burden" - is this the main argument for everything? from white guilt to whatever? I just commented on how it won't lead to long-term sustainability. It is experimentally proven in China and plenty of federal countries of India.

kenshaw 10y ago

This is a clear troll. Absolutely nothing said by this poster has anything to do with the actual article. Additionally, the user account is only 13 days old. Moderators, please kill this account and postings.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
davidcollantes 10y ago
I don't see the troll on it. He expressed his points of view, related to the article. I agree that meat isn't a long lasting solution (I eat meat, by the way). I think plants agriculture is. Chickens for short term? Yes.