3 ms·

Thanks for that! I agree 100% Another thought: 60-70 years ago almost every household in the US had their own chicken or rabbits. I assume also way more people

Thanks for that! I agree 100% Another thought: 60-70 years ago almost every household in the US had their own chicken or rabbits. I assume also way more people were growing their own food. I think it is really bad that all that vanished and is one part in why our food system is currently so vulnerable: Having huge centralized industries makes it much more easy to wipe out whole harvest through pests or diseases. Let alone if there are production errors and products need to be called back etc. This is a price no one calculated in the so called "efficiency".

jonfw 6y ago
Centralized industry also makes it much easier to enforce regulations which control disease, and it justifies expensive research on things like pest and research prevention that wouldn't be economically feasible to generate returns on at smaller scales. Here's a good question- do you think that food-born illness is more or less common in countries that have more centralized their food production?
- FooHentai 6y ago
  >do you think that food-born illness is more or less common in countries that have more centralized their food production? Tricky one to answer, since each country has a lot of counfounding factors (e.g. Use of pathogen-bearing 'night soil' as fertilizer, availability of refrigeration in warm and humid climates, potable water availability). Best measure IMO would be each country taken individually pre- and post-centralization of agriculture. What those figures seem to show (taking primarily the CDC figures for USA) is less frequent outbreaks, but greater spread when they occur, overall the number of impacted individuals looks similar if not slightly lower. This makes sense - centralized production and wide distribution means a single instance of contamination, though much lower in likelihood to occur, will reach out and touch more people than it otherwise would have when it occurs.

jonfw 6y ago

Centralized industry also makes it much easier to enforce regulations which control disease, and it justifies expensive research on things like pest and research prevention that wouldn't be economically feasible to generate returns on at smaller scales. Here's a good question- do you think that food-born illness is more or less common in countries that have more centralized their food production?

FooHentai 6y ago
>do you think that food-born illness is more or less common in countries that have more centralized their food production? Tricky one to answer, since each country has a lot of counfounding factors (e.g. Use of pathogen-bearing 'night soil' as fertilizer, availability of refrigeration in warm and humid climates, potable water availability). Best measure IMO would be each country taken individually pre- and post-centralization of agriculture. What those figures seem to show (taking primarily the CDC figures for USA) is less frequent outbreaks, but greater spread when they occur, overall the number of impacted individuals looks similar if not slightly lower. This makes sense - centralized production and wide distribution means a single instance of contamination, though much lower in likelihood to occur, will reach out and touch more people than it otherwise would have when it occurs.