DEI and social distancing yield plentiful eggs

Eggs are scarce and expensive because society does not allow chicken flocks to practice DEI or social distancing.

Avian flu is being blamed for the egg shortage and high cost, but it is the symptom of risky agriculture that threatens food security.

Most of today’s commercial eggs come from hybrid chickens that are near genetic clones with upward of a million layers crammed into the same building. This huge economy of scale produces abundant and inexpensive eggs when it’s working right.

As we learned during COVID social distancing reduces the odds of disease transmission. When chickens are crowded together microbes roar through a flock bred for maximum productivity yet short on genetic diversity.

Compare that with the way eggs were once produced. Farms were scattered with most having small chicken flocks. Five thousand flocks of two hundred birds each total a million socially distant layers. If a disease wipes out a flock or two it would have little impact on total egg production or price. Also, those small farmers raised birds of varied breeds. This genetic diversity increases the likelihood that some may have disease resistance. Space plus diversity enhances food security.

Economics drove small flocks off scattered farms because monstrous egg production facilities can sell eggs cheaper than small producers. It works fine until a disease like avian flu arrives. Then so many layers are killed that total egg production sags as prices rise.

Today’s hogs, cattle, and turkeys also lack social distancing. Same for crops. America is now a giant cornfield from Ohio westward to Nebraska. Highly hybridized corn is amazingly productive but genetically similar. When a new disease or blight arrives it can roar through millions of corn crowded acres before science develops a remedy.

My family’s solution is to produce as much food in our yard as we can to supplement what we buy. A tiny plot yields abundant vegetables and our small chicken flock is a blend of several genetically varied breeds. We treat them well and give them plenty of space. It’s our DEI flock. In return they give us abundant eggs.

Rich Patterson has backgrounds in environmental science and forestry. He co-owns Winding Pathways, a consulting business that encourages people to “Create Wondrous Yards.”