The Golden - Yet Toxic - Modern Egg

One day, a countryman going to the nest of his goose found therean egg all yellow and glittering. It was heavy as lead. He was going to throwit away, because he thought it was a trick. But after careful thought, he tookit home. He looked closer, and discovered that it was an egg of pure gold.

The next morning he went to the nest, his pace quickening as heapproached. There he found a second egg, as large and heavy as the first.

The countryman took the golden eggs to market, and sold them fora heavy pouch of silver. Every week he would collect the eggs, and everyweekend he would sell the eggs for silver.

But as the coins jingled in his pocket, his greed grew. He beganto imagine how many eggs must be inside the goose, just waiting to be taken andsold. These thoughts grew more frequent, consuming his days and nights. Oneday, overcome with anticipation, he grabbed the goose by its neck, thinking toget at once all the gold it could offer. He put the goose on a chopping block,and with one fell swoop, killed it with an axe.

Slicing it open, he found inside…nothing.

The fable of the goose who laidgolden eggs may be familiar to some readers. Different renditions aboundhowever the moral of the story is consistent: those who focus on immediate andgreater wealth override their incremental fortunes, and end up losing all.

But let us imagine a different castof characters and see if the moral changes.

Let the countryman be represented byan agribusiness giant. We could choose one of approximately 300 companies inthe United States, all who manage more than a billion caged birds. Or perhapsthe farmer can be played by the global egg market, an industry that owns sixbillion hens producing a trillion eggs a year according to a report by Compassion in World Farming.

Playing the part of the goldengoose, let’s meet unremarkable, low-end layer number 221-B: a hybrid whiteleghorn chicken, the most common breed and the backbone of industrial eggproduction. 

Of course, a chicken egg is notactual gold but the chicken nevertheless produces 64 million metric tons ayear, according to WATTAgNetreport. Global sales are estimated toreach/surpass $50 billion.

Now that we’ve updated our cast ofcharacters, the story changes.

Onceupon a time, chickens roamed around family farms. Eggs were gathered from thenests and brought to the kitchen, with occasional surplus sold in localmarkets. But this idyllic lifestyle had risks. Chickens got sick, were eaten bywild animals, even cannibalized each other.

Oneday, a countryman had an idea – a new way forward that would maximizeproduction. To keep the birds separated, he built individual cages, reducingthe hen’s movement and increasing egg output.

Producingeggs became a profit driven industry, no longer tethered to animal husbandryand archaic ethics. Soon cages were stacked 10 high. Technologicaladvancements and sophisticated mechanization propelled the industry forward…feedingthe countryman’s greed.

The industry grew – but this growth was unequal. The countrymanfelt the most profitable model was to consolidate operations, bringingproduction, packing and processing under one roof.

The collective subsumed the individual hen. The flock became amechanism that required inputs (food, water, shelter and human labor) andprovided outputs (eggs).

The new model broughtever more profit for the countryman, and while the birds natural behavior wascurtailed, the birds nevertheless slaved to lay golden eggs.

Agribusiness hasn’t yet killed the golden goose.Agribusiness, after all, is a business – one driven by strategic plans,calculated outcomes and long-term investment. It is not a blind greedy countryman.

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Yet, the golden goose of industry hardly resembles a bird inany traditional sense. In redefining chickens as mere biological mechanismsthat transform grain into protein packages, the countryman/ agrigiant hybridhas designed a system that prioritizes efficiency, not ethics. 

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Increasing economic returns also requires concentratingmarket power. According to the AmericanEgg Board, there are 63 egg producing companies with flocks of one millionor more, 15 companies with more than five million layers. In Europe, just fivecompanies control nearly 40million layers.

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Like the ill-fated character in the original tale, theindustrial agribusiness countryman believes the chicken holds a little more‘potential’ inside – perhaps unlocked through a scientifically managed diet,through restriction of ‘unnecessary’ movement, developing vaccines to combatdisease, and culling birds when production declines.

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And we, the market goer, are complicit in enabling thecountryman for we can buy eggs for a few meager pieces of silver. And here liesthe rub.

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What the fable doesn’t show is the end user: the consumer. Asconsumers, we claim to want cage free, humanelyraised birds yet, we also want eggs that are affordable. Paying sky-highprices for happier chickens would leave most customers shell-shocked. Afterall, in a world where the countryman is driven by maximizing profit, the pricethe consumer is willing to pay dictates the quality of life of the chicken.

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Our updated fable needs to includethe role of market buyers as active agents in the decision-making process ofagribusiness. Researchhas shown that socially conscious consumers can use their purchasing power tohelp remodel systems to better align with their personal values and ethics.There are templates from past success where consumers drove much-needed change,examples include workplace safety regimes and increased environmentalprotections. Even in the egg industry, technological advancements are nearchanging the long-held practice of culling millions of malechickens a year. The popularity of ‘cage-free’systems, while fraught with problems, testify to the power of the consumer.

Consumer awareness can drive change. Yet, perhaps thosecalls for change will not be drastic enough. While cage-free systems, forexample, are a step in the right direction, they will take time to phase in andthey will cutinto profits.

More drastic changes could beinspired by selfish survival instinct, on behalf of the consumer and industry.After all, in 2015, the AvianFlu scare brought us an apocalyptic vision aspyres of dead birds were incinerated in an attempt to stave off disease.

As the industry is pushed todangerous levels, lowering the axe with every contagion and animal rights violation,will the industry implode upon itself? Or perhaps, will public awarenesscampaigns for a cage-free future push agribusiness towards a sustainable and humanemodel? This seems too optimistic. Consumer decision-making is a complex beast;purchasing behavior precariously balances price, convenience, food fads, ethicsand social considerations. While the industry prepares for a huge switch tomore ethical, cage free eggs based on consumer demand, the question remains asto what consumers will really buy. Somedata suggests it will still be the cheapeggs riddled with ethical and environmental costs.

One thing is certain. Status quo thinkingis NOT viable when the goose’s needs are made part of the story. So, let’srethink our role as consumers. To turn the taleon its head, perhaps it is time to lower the axe, not in search for immediatewealth but because the consequences of continuing on are too high.

To do this, we must ask some hardquestions.

Can a coordinated, global consumerboycott, or absurdly high taxes on products produced via inhumane methods,actually change the system?

What other realistic options exist for swinging our axe and taking down thesystem?

If it should be decided that thequick death of a system is better than the suffering of billions of chickens,we, unlike the farmer in the fable, must anticipate and accept theconsequences. These consequences are a tall order. Rather than just a farmer’sgreed resulting in a single dead goose and a family losing its economiclivelihood, this drama plays out on a global scale – potentially impacting thefood security of billions because, as one of their affordability, eggs areconsumed by more people worldwide than any other animalproduct. In other words, quickly rising eggprices need to offset the costs of an improved and updated global systemotherwise there will be a drastic reduction in output that would have a hugeimpact on the livelihood of billions of people. Any shortage will result in thedisproportionate suffering of the poor, those unable to pay the increased priceresulting from low supply. 

Whether we adhere to the originaltale or the updated version, the fate of the goose is still bound up in thehands of humans. Should we try and kill the goose (the whole industry as weknow it) before agribusiness senses our revolt and placates us with a goldenegg a day? Or should we be willingly placated, choosing to protect our dietaryhabits from the suffering that follows revolution?

These are complex questions thatconfound any discussion of the chicken egg industry. However, one thing isclear; this is no longer a simple tale of a single countryman and the perils ofgreed.