Innovations in Hen Housing

With the release of Unnaturally Delicious today, I thought I'd initiate a series of posts on the book over the next week or two.  

One of the main purposes of the posts is to share some pictures associated with the chapter contents. Originally the publishers planned to include the photos in the book, but decided to pull them at the last minute.  The upside is that I have clearance to reproduce a variety of interesting pictures associated with the book content, and I plan to do that here on the blog.  

The second chapter of the book talks about some innovative housing systems for egg laying hens.  What can be done to improve the welfare of laying hens which typically live in a crowded wire cage.  Why not just go cage free? 

“Typical cage-free systems (often called barn or aviary systems) provide hens with much more space than do the cage systems. The barns allow the birds to exhibit natural behaviors like scratching and dust bathing, and they provide nesting areas for laying eggs. But they are far from the paradise many people envision. As Silva put it, “Cage-free isn’t what most people think it is.””

No hen housing system is superior to another in all respects, and there are tradeoffs and costs with each.  A really nice illustration of this is via the results of the research project that goes by the name Coalition for Sustainable Egg Supply.  I highly recommend their visuals that compare how different systems rate along dimensions related to food safety, animal welfare, environment, etc.   

In any event, one relatively new system in the U.S. is the so-called enriched colony cage system that attempt to provide some of the benefits of cage free without some of the downsides. I write:

“Unlike the barren environment in the battery cages, the enriched colony cages have the mat area that allows the hens to exercise their natural urge to scratch. Also available are perches that allow the hens to get up off the wire floor. In addition to the nests, the perches are a popular sleeping area for the hens. Running underneath the colony cage is a conveyor belt that removes the manure and keeps it away from the birds. The enriched colony cages aren’t perfect, and some animal advocacy groups think they don’t go far enough. But they’re an innovative compromise.”

Here's a picture of the housing system from the cage manufacturer Big Dutchman.

Of course, we can go even further still.  One group of Dutch researchers has been working to create a system—the Roundel (the eggs are sold in a circular, biodegradable carton under the name Rondeel).  As I write:

“The Roundel is the Ritz Carlton of hen living. Hens have virtually all the freedoms and amenities they’d want from the wild but with ample feed and without any of the dangers from predators or hardships from adverse weather. The Roundel also comes with a luxury hotel price.”

Here's a cool image of the Roundel system from the Wageningen UR Livestock Research group.  

The chapter also discusses some animal welfare trading schemes that might also offer innovative ways to improve farm animal living conditions at a price we're willing to pay. To find out more, you'll have to see the book.

Unnaturally Delicious

My new book is set for release tomorrow - Tuesday March 22nd.

It should be a fun few weeks of media rounds from Brian Lehrer's radio show on WNYC tomorrow morning to Stuart Varney's TV show on the Fox Business Network on Friday to Russ Robert's podcast EconTalk set for release next week.

To give a sense of the book's contents, here's an excerpt from the introduction.

“This is the story of the innovators and innovations shaping the future of food. I’ll introduce you to David Waits, the farmer turned-entrepreneur whose software is now being used on more than 100 million acres in twenty-three countries to help farmers increase yields and reduce nutrient runoff. You’ll meet Tom Silva, who helped his employer build a new hen-housing system that improves animal welfare at an affordable price. Mark Post is a scientist whose work may lead us away from eating animal products altogether. He’s growing meat in his lab. Without the cow. I’ll take you behind the scenes of a student competition at which Sarah Ritz and Aaron Cohen coaxed bacteria to signal when olive oil is stale and Paul Tse and Marco So engineered a probiotic to fight obesity. I’ll take you to South Dakota, where Eldon Roth created a new way to fight food waste. You’ll learn about work by my former student Abdul Naico and the German scientist Ingo Potrykus that aims to fight malnutrition in the developing world with nutrient-enhanced rice and sweet potatoes. My plant science colleagues at Oklahoma State University reveal how they’re helping wheat farmers sustainably grow more with less. And the engineering professor Hod Lipson discusses how to get fresh, tasty, 3-D printed food at the touch of a button, perhaps even delivered to us by Mark Oleynik’s robotic chef.”

The introduction ends as follows:

“Life—particularly in the realm of eating—is substantially better today than it was in our great grandparents’ time. And, if history is our guide, it will become better still. Let me tell you how.”

There is such a thing as food and such a thing as poison

Some words to ponder (written in 1958)

“There is such a thing as food and such a thing as poison. But the damage done by those who pass off poison as food is far less than that done by those who generation after generation convince people that food is poison. ”

-Paul Goodman, US author and poet

Cited on page 339 in Andrews, R. 1993.  The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations.  New York: Columbia University Press.
 

Politico on Food

Yesterday Politico.com came out with a whole series of articles on food policy.    

I was one of the "experts" interviewed for this piece on food policy.  I must admit to being in the minority opinion on several of the questions.  For example, one of the questions asked, "Are the presidential candidates doing a sufficient job in the campaign discussing the future of food policy?"  I was one of the 3% that said "yes" (I might have been the only one).  It is important to note that this is a survey of FOOD experts, and as such it's not at all surprising that they think their issue isn't getting enough attention.  But, with issues like ISIS, health care, immigration, etc., its no wonder food policy takes a backseat.  Total food and agricultural spending is a very small part of the federal budget.  In 2014, the whole of USDA was responsible for only about 4% of total federal spending (and the vast majority of that - around 80% - was for food assistance programs like SNAP). I suspect the candidates, on both the left and the right, have lots of smart, well-paid advisers, and the candidates are devoting an optimal amount of time to these issues given the likelihood they will actually sway votes.  Keep in mind Ted Cruz won the Iowa Republican caucus despite taking a stance against the ethanol mandate (a supposed sacred cow in corn-growing Iowa politics).  Anyway, you can read how the experts responded to the other questions at the link.

Another story on the complicated interrelationships between federal agencies in food safety regulation, applied particularly to chickens was interesting.  The story included the following fascinating graphic.  

Cost Effectiveness of Soda Taxes

In a piece for Cato, Christopher Snowden discusses the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of soda taxes that seem to be gaining traction worldwide.  Snowden's views closely mirror my own.  I like the way he framed the relative effectiveness of soda taxes in this passage:

“Whilst the benefit remains forever on the horizon, the cost can be easily calculated; it is simply the amount of money squeezed from consumers by the tax. In New Zealand, for example, advocates claim that a 20 per cent tax on soda would save 67 lives per year and raise $40 million (NZ).[12] Leaving aside the reliability of the New Zealand forecast, this works out as a cost of $600,000 (NZ) for every life that is extended and does not represent good value for money.

Political action on public health grounds is often justified by the costs of unhealthy lifestyles to the healthcare system, and therefore to the taxpayer. The economic costs of obesity are often misrepresented and fail to account for savings to taxpayers, but even if they were more reliable it is far from obvious that additional taxes would relieve the economic burden.[13] For example, the UK’s Children’s Food Campaign recently claimed that a 20 per cent tax on sugary drinks would reduce healthcare costs in London by £39 million over twenty years, but their own figures suggest that the tax itself will relieve Londoners of £2.6 billion over the same period.[14] The cost of the tax will therefore exceed the savings by several orders of magnitude.”

By the way, if you want to see which (out of more than 100) action will produce the biggest bank for your buck, check out the work of the Copenhagen Consensus, which routinely conducts cost-benefit analysis on a whole set of issues.  See their list for the most cost-effective actions.