You can buy a cheap chicken today, but we all pay for it in the long run

I agree with the sentiment but this is a poorly written article.

There are plenty of consumers that are willing to pay extra for grass-fed/organic/free-range/etc meat. But there's also a limit to the extra I can pay. The whole "natural food" and "organic" trend is now just a marketing gimmick. You'd often find the same product at a massive price hike when sold at a "health store".

The question of who's to blame isn't answered in the article except to say that it isn't the farmers. I guess the implication is that it is the consumer that is to blame.

The article also blames the government. As if it's the role of the government to provide a level playing field to the parties involved. I do agree that legislation should be introduced to limit the use of antibiotics and hormones and it already is in some countries. But nothing more.

The article does not provide any data/link to the alleged destruction of environment.

Chicken is a lot like fracking - it probably has some external cost - but its a lot better than beef,tuna . . or any other meat out there - in terms of environmental sustainability.

Its also possible to recycle almost all parts of a chicken.

For example people in europe,america like what is know as the "white meat" ( not sure if its a co-incident ) - breast,thigh - and people in asia like "brown meat" - which includes leg,wings.

So what the global food producers do is recycle and even out the demand which is one of the reason why white mean has became so much cheaper in europe.