I live in a small village who’s residents work in agriculture – specifically fruits and eggs. If you approach the village in the late evening hours – when it’s getting dark – you will be greeted by hills covered with stripes of light – these are the chicken coops (the lights are kept on to keep the chickens feeding – which increases egg production).
One of the “perks” of living here is free eggs (and fruits in season)! Whenever I need eggs I help one of the coop-owners collect the eggs (its a daily chore) and in return I get a tray of 30 eggs. They would give them to me anyways – but I prefer this exchange. But “free” has a high price – and I am not at peace with my choice. The chickens are kept in terrible conditions – they are kept 3 or 4 in a small cage with barely enough room to move, industrialized food is supplied automatically – and they live that way for 2 years after which they are replaced and processed for their meat.
But here’s the thing. If I were to setup a small protective coop with two or three free-to-range chickens in it – they would supply enough eggs for two or three families. They are very low maintenance and the cost is practically nothing (you do need to feed them and collect the eggs). I know it’s a naive question – but it’s been with me for some time now – why doesn’t this scale up? Why does this process, when scaled up, compromise so many qualities – which are naturally there in it’s basic nature?
I really do not have the knowledge to answer this. I realize that cities are not planned with space and conditions to have free-ranging chickens. Maybe the problem is the cities? We had 5 or 6 consecutive days of rain in Israel. I live in the north, where it rains much more then in the center area, where my parents live. My parents reported floods and power failures. Here there were no such problems – the land is now a rich dark brown – saturated with water, the plants all seem grateful – the air is cool and clean.
I wonder…