Why is chicken so cheap? [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#41

Post by hapidjus » Mon, May 27, 2019, 4:38 PM UTC

evgen wrote: post #36

rasengan0 wrote: post #10

Breeding a "product" with a small gene pool, churning out monoculture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gros_Michel_banana or a more imaginative corrective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H7N9 makes a plant based diet a very good hack indeed.

You don't know what the word monoculture means until you stand in the middle of a soybean field in the midwest and see nothing but more soybeans (from the same small handful of varieties provided by giant seed companies) as far as the eye can see. Please do not imagine for one second that a plant-based diet increases biodiversity.

Aren’t most of those soybeans used as feed for livestock?

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#42

Post by dyeje » Mon, May 27, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

hapidjus wrote: post #41

evgen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know what the word monoculture means until you stand in the middle of a soybean field in the midwest and see nothing but more soybeans (from the same small handful of varieties provided by giant seed companies) as far as the eye can see. Please do not imagine for one second that a plant-based diet increases biodiversity.

Aren’t most of those soybeans used as feed for livestock?

Is that relevant to the monoculture topic?

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#43

Post by unknownkadath » Mon, May 27, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #24

vbuwivbiu wrote: post #4

That man and his automatic shed. How depressing. I'd much rather pay 3x as much, eat chicken 1/3 as often and actually enjoy it instead of eating it every day and hardly noticing it. All those cheap chickens may as well have stickers on saying "1/3 the enjoyment"

This is what free market capitalism ends up producing. Not just for chickens, but for any product really. And this man is open and honest about it. Why is this any more depressing than a person working two minimum-wage jobs and barely making due? If you don't like this type of thing, the other option is to change the entire system, pay ordinary people enough for their ordinary jobs that they can afford to care about…

You're not wrong. Maslow's hierarchy is a thing.

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#44

Post by toasterlovin » Mon, May 27, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

781 wrote: post #20

RandallBrown wrote: post #2

Wow, 39 is much shorter than I expected. I guess it makes sense, because how else could you keep up with demand, but my view of animal lifecycles only has stuff like bugs fully maturing so quickly. Interesting stuff. Now my question is why are bananas so cheap? They come all the way from like Brazil, but they're still cheaper than the apple that is grown just a couple hours from me.

Apples are also more expensive than oranges, which I too find strange.

Cheaper by what metric? Also, it depends on the variety. FWIW, my experience is that oranges are usually more expensive than apples, except for the few weeks that oranges are in season.

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#45

Post by froindt » Mon, May 27, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

miguelrochefort wrote: post #22

When I went to America, I couldn't believe how cheap chicken was. I once found boneless chicken breast for $1.99/pound. Eggs were dirt cheap as well, sometimes less than $1.00/dozen. I don't remember ever seeing prices like these in Canada.

My record for a dozen eggs was $0.37/dozen in summer of 2017 at an Aldi in a town go about it 30,000 in Iowa. It was roughly that price the whole summer.

From my understanding, that was below the price of production. 2017 was a very tough year for chicken farmers, with a huge oversupply. The chicken rendering (killing) operations were backlogged by many months. Farmers often had no choice but to raise the chickens they already bought, knowing full well they're going to be sold unprofitably.

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#46

Post by purplezooey » Mon, May 27, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

perfmode wrote: post #14

Reason077 wrote: post #11

Chickens are one the most successful animals on earth! By evolving to become fatter, more succulent, and delicious, they have convinced humans to feed and house them, and in doing so have multiplied to vast numbers and spread their genes almost everywhere across the globe.

black people, too! we were so strong and resilient and good at labor that humans paid for our travel across the seas and gave us the opportunity to help build America! we were fed and housed and everything, oh my! gosh > Shadow with me while I'm steppin' on my own resentment > Life scatter in all directions, I was overzealous > Overcurious, Momma worry her days get better > I know she heard me, a timid voice in her s…

wait.... what

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#47

Post by titanomachy » Mon, May 27, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #34

miguelrochefort wrote: post #22

When I went to America, I couldn't believe how cheap chicken was. I once found boneless chicken breast for $1.99/pound. Eggs were dirt cheap as well, sometimes less than $1.00/dozen. I don't remember ever seeing prices like these in Canada.

We don't pay for the healthcare of anyone in the production chain.

If they wanted healthcare they should have been smarter and got better jobs. /s

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#48

Post by toasterlovin » Mon, May 27, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

nsomaru wrote: post #30

avar wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of lives do you think birds living "in nature" in Africa have? Instead of being painlessly gassed to death like farmed chickens they'll be eaten alive by some predator, or instead of being provided with antibiotics as hatchlings perhaps worms will eat most of their siblings alive before they leave the nest. Romanticizing factory farming is ridiculous, but so is romanticizing the lives of wild animals. From…

Can’t say that comparing the appalling conditions in bird factories with a life lived in the wild really compares here. At least wild birds get to make a go of it, the factory birds never had a chance. Some of them are too fat to even walk and never even get to leave their cage. If I was given the choice I’d choose the life of the wild bird over the caged one any day.

Just playing devils advocate here, not actually arguing either way, but with the following you have actually described the life that some people choose to live (by some definition of the word “choose”):

> Some of them are too fat to even walk and never even get to leave their cage.

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#49

Post by thinkingemote » Mon, May 27, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

jawarner wrote: post #40

Land usage per chicken, difference between free-range vs. intensively reared: 1/12 m^2 vs. 1/17 m^2 Consumer cost, difference between free range vs. intensively reared: 4 euros/lb vs. 2 euros/lb. Does the difference in production costs explain the drastic consumer cost difference between these two methods? Why can't free-range farming be automated like it is in the intensive rearing model?

Free range are older I think

Re: Why is chicken so cheap? [video]

#50

Post by newman8r » Mon, May 27, 2019, 4:50 PM UTC

jawarner wrote: post #40

Land usage per chicken, difference between free-range vs. intensively reared: 1/12 m^2 vs. 1/17 m^2 Consumer cost, difference between free range vs. intensively reared: 4 euros/lb vs. 2 euros/lb. Does the difference in production costs explain the drastic consumer cost difference between these two methods? Why can't free-range farming be automated like it is in the intensive rearing model?

That's an interesting thought. I was curious if anyone was working on something like this and I was able to find this: https://phys.org/news/2013-09-automated-comfort-free-range-h...

Sounds like a good business to be in if it can be scaled up.