Democrats are understandably eager to stick it to Trump over his unmet campaign promise to reduce prices. But society’s fixation with cheaply produced eggs is precisely what got us into this mess.
At the cost of still having the factory farming the original article talks about. Animal agriculture’s many problems are often worse in the US but don’t pretend they don’t exist elsewhere
Canada, however, remains the Western leader in hen confinement, with 83 percent of egg-laying hens still confined to battery cages as of last year [2021] – 27 percent in enriched cages, according to Mercy.
[In 2024] over 81% of Canada’s hens remain in “enriched” cages, which offer minimal improvements over traditional battery cages, restricting natural behaviours like wing flapping, perching, and dust bathing.
Yeah, factory farming is still shit, but there is a structural difference with allowing farms to concentrate to the level that American farms do. When an infectious disease hits, you cull a far greater proportion of the population.
Supply management doesn’t solve all ethical issues with eggs and dairy, but it is still a better system than unregulated free market capitalism.
The article also doesn’t say they couldn’t or wouldn’t intensify operations any further. They talk about the state today, not down the line in the future
Going back to the original article’s idea, People demaning lower prices tends to put pressure on them to do so whenever prices rise for any reason. Regardless of being diseases related
See also the UK who’s historically claimed how they do things differently and now has over 1000 megafarms
The article also doesn’t say they couldn’t or wouldn’t intensify operations any further. They talk about the state today, not down the line in the future
Yes it does. It literally says that our supply management system is designed to spread out production across regions so that you can’t ever have that many eggs produced in a single place.
If you’re saying ‘well maybe Canada will throw out it’s supply management system and do something completely different’ then sure, literally anything can happen in the future, that’s not a meaningful point. The point is that Canada’s supply management system prioritizes production being distributed over greater areas which inherently leads to smaller farms and helps to prevent the spread of disease, and is a better system than the American one of mass concentration and racing to the bottom.
A supply chain management system is not the strong protection you might think it is. Factory farming has continued to consolidate with it in place. Especially with it being something that most all egg farms are not involved in to begin with
The number of chicken farms has declined 88 percent; while in the same period of time in the United States, the number of dairy farms dropped by 88 percent.[34][3] Supply-managed farms represent 8% to 13% of all farms in the country.[194]
[…]
Hall Findlay says that even with supply management, "[t]here has been more consolidation in dairy, poultry and eggs than in almost every other agricultural sector
At the cost of still having the factory farming the original article talks about. Animal agriculture’s many problems are often worse in the US but don’t pretend they don’t exist elsewhere
https://sentientmedia.org/enriched-versus-cage-free-eggs/
https://www.compassioninfoodbusiness.com/latest-news/our-news/2025/01/us-ahead-of-canada-in-cage-free-egg-transition
Yeah, factory farming is still shit, but there is a structural difference with allowing farms to concentrate to the level that American farms do. When an infectious disease hits, you cull a far greater proportion of the population.
Supply management doesn’t solve all ethical issues with eggs and dairy, but it is still a better system than unregulated free market capitalism.
And much of the world is heading that way - not away from it. Think of it only a US problem at your own peril
The article is literally entirely about how Canada’s supply management system prevents us from moving that direction.
The article also doesn’t say they couldn’t or wouldn’t intensify operations any further. They talk about the state today, not down the line in the future
Going back to the original article’s idea, People demaning lower prices tends to put pressure on them to do so whenever prices rise for any reason. Regardless of being diseases related
See also the UK who’s historically claimed how they do things differently and now has over 1000 megafarms
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/18/uk-has-more-than-1000-livestock-mega-farms-investigation-reveals
Yes it does. It literally says that our supply management system is designed to spread out production across regions so that you can’t ever have that many eggs produced in a single place.
If you’re saying ‘well maybe Canada will throw out it’s supply management system and do something completely different’ then sure, literally anything can happen in the future, that’s not a meaningful point. The point is that Canada’s supply management system prioritizes production being distributed over greater areas which inherently leads to smaller farms and helps to prevent the spread of disease, and is a better system than the American one of mass concentration and racing to the bottom.
A supply chain management system is not the strong protection you might think it is. Factory farming has continued to consolidate with it in place. Especially with it being something that most all egg farms are not involved in to begin with
[…]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_and_poultry_supply_management_in_Canada#Policy