As it reeled from the recall of half a billion eggs for possible salmonella infection, the American egg industry was already battling a movement to outlaw its methods as cruel and unsafe, and adapting to the Obama administration’s drive to bolster health rules and inspections.Egg producers have watched in dismay as the political winds seemed to turn, largely because of growing concern about animal rights. The European Union will bar small cages for egg hens as of 2012. By public referendum, California will ban small cages in 2015, and the state will not allow the sale of eggs produced that way in other states. Michigan, Ohio and other states have placed limits on future caging of hens.
via nytimes.com
I find it interesting that - a year after the "Egg Industry" on PEI backed off from attacking small free range egg producers as being unsafe - the Egg Industry is on the defensive.
A networked system of egg production - offering large scale in aggregate and but small in detail is I think the beginning of how a new distributed food system will grow.
