[late]

"Take flu, a disease that is considered to have high pandemic potential, having caused an estimated 15 pandemics in the past 500 years. “There is clearly a link between the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses and intensified poultry production systems,” says spatial epidemiologist Marius Gilbert...

The reasons, many of which were documented in Wallace’s 2016 book Big Farms Make Big Flu, include the density with which chickens, turkeys or other poultry are packed into factory farms, and the fact that the birds in a given farm tend to be near genetic clones of one another – having been selected over decades for desirable traits such as lean meat. If a virus gets introduced into such a flock, it can race through it without meeting any resistance in the form of genetic variants that prevent its spread."

"In a paper published in 2018, Gilbert’s group reviewed historical “conversion events”, as they call them – when a not-very-pathogenic avian flu strain became much more dangerous, and found that most of them had occurred in commercial poultry systems, and more frequently in wealthy countries." (meaning not just China)

This gives us an opportunity, he says, to question our lifestyle choices – because chicken isn’t cheap if it costs a million lives – and vote for politicians who hold agribusiness to higher standards of ecological, social and epidemiological sustainability."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/28/is-factory-farming-to-blame-for-coronavirus

[Patrickov]

Viruses more or less still need to strike a balance on deadliness and contagiousness (COVID-19 spreads more widely partly because it is less deadly than, say, SARS), but vigilance is obviously necessary.

Factory farming is more or less a result of massive demand. Vegetable can be less affected by this supply-demand complex because even city dwellers can more or less grow their own food.

I cannot promise myself going vegan (and there are still immense myths on the nutrient balance between meat and vegetables around my place) but a gradual reduction of meat consumption may be achievable.

[late]

Factory farming is more or less a result of massive demand.

Back in the 1800s, the American government invested in agricultural research (like the MCormick Reaper), built agricultural colleges, and created educational services for farmers that didn't involve them going back to school. They also invested in transportation to get goods to market promptly.

That process kept going, which is how we wound up with industrial agriculture. It was cheaper, but the long term costs keep getting higher.

[Patrickov]

It was cheaper, but the long term costs keep getting higher.

Jared Diamond claimed this to be true for all forms of agriculture, which started 10,000 years ago. If proved, industrial agriculture can be said as a more "violent" form of it.