[jasonisalive]

As usual, Gates gets the true problem completely wrong. The real issue here are the numerous and significant unpriced economic externalities associated with animal flesh production, whose impact is rendered enormous by the scale of this industry. Animal rearing produces a major portion of global greenhouse gases, rivers of faeces, pollutes waterways and overtaxes water resources, not because of a lack of capacity to technologically innovate cleaner solutions, but because collective interests in these resources are not being properly acknowledged and protected through the negotiation and enforcement of pricing.

This is a classic economic problem. Bill Gates does the issue no favours with his starry-eyed techno-optimism or his attempts depict food supply as a selfless global communal endeavour. No, food supply is a market of profit-seeking individuals using their resources to generate goods considered valuable enough to trade by other individuals. There is simply an overproduction of these goods because they are being sold without their externalised costs being factored in. Food producers can make their products too cheaply, so too many are made.

Tackle the pricing problem and technological development to minimise environmental impacts will naturally emerge. Absent this step, efforts to develop and promulgate technological improvements will never get far.

[codeulike]

These satellite pictures of the waste lagoons from feedlots that went round last year are pretty scary http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/05/start/meat-m...

[bryanlarsen]

This is of course not unique to animal farming. Where I grew up animal farming is much more environmentally friendly than grain farming. It uses green water and native prairie, without chemical use or plowing. (Plowing is generally much more environmentally destructive than chemical use).

In Saskatchewan, higher pricing of externalities would increase animal production, not lower it.

[sleepyhead]

> Where I grew up

Well that is the problem here. Farming has changed. Particularly so in America. A handful slaughterhouses, heavy corn use, chemically power washed eggs, all within a framework that is made for economical returns and not animal welfare or taste. And it is not a US-only problem. Denmark for example is facing huge issues with pig farming and here in Norway we are seeing problems with use of antibiotics in chickens.