[valgor]

As an animal rights activist, this will do wonders for the movement. As chicken farms become unprofitable due to all the birds dying, prices will go up. This gives people like me an edge to talk about alternatives. We already do this with egg alternatives due to the increases in egg prices. Hopefully companies like JUST Egg can capitalize on this.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

>> As an animal rights activist, this will do wonders for the movement.

The article says allowing the virus to rip through flocks could kill "billions of birds" [1]. Is that really OK with the movement?

___________

[1] Allowing widespread infection of commercial flocks would kill billions of birds, drive poultry and egg prices up, as well as destabilize local economies and global trade through import restrictions imposed on U.S. products, the authors wrote. Simultaneously, it could also foster reservoirs of H5N1, increasing the virus' odds of making the leap to humans — and gaining the ability for human-to-human infection.

[valgor]

The birds are dying anyway. So instead of their bodies being used for profit to continue the industry, they will die with hopefully little to no government bailouts, forcing farmers to change what they do for a living.

[ineedasername]

I'm guessing the movement figures the birds' 1st choice for their future, a career in the food service industry, isn't going to work out much better for the birds anyway.

[tbrownaw]

> become unprofitable due to all the birds dying

Isn't this just switching from, if you detect any infections you're required to kill your flock, to if you have any infections your flock will die of illness? Your flock is still dead either way.

[senectus1]

you're wrong here... eggs will become obscenely profitable, because of the sheer demand for the things. Backyard/black market and over seas eggs will be worth an order of magnitude more than before.

And guess what, America will have next to no say in the animal welfare of the source of the eggs.

[newdee]

I’d rather eat an actual egg than some hyper processed, plant based “alternative”.

[bamboozled]

I'm not sure what's going to happen here, but I'm never going to be eating "JUST Eggs"(tm). Sorry.

I'd like to see a world where animals are treated better though. I don't really understand why food and food production has to be so shit.

[aziaziazi]

JUST Eggs aren’t the only alternative, through: seeds, beans, mushrooms, grains…

I guess you know that the reason of shitty treatment is price, would you rather buy 20x priced eggs ? There’s many family farms that would be happy to deliver them anywhere at that rate.

[bamboozled]

It's a shame that we've just settled for this as the only answer, "you want better food, you have to pay more".

I think decent treatment of animals and access to decent food is a basic human and animal right. But yeah, it's hard to have this discussion if all it ever comes down too is economics or the decision between communism and capitalism.

[tbrownaw]

It's cheaper, and most shoppers aren't willing to pay enough extra to cover better treatment. (It's not the shoppers' fault that most of the labels aren't very meaningful? Well no, that means it's not cost-effective to ensure people are aware of that.)

[bamboozled]

It's more of an assumption that people wouldn't want better food, maybe even more a statement about our culture in general.