>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 cou

>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.