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Comment by rconti | Hacker News Reader

This immediately makes me think that, as the supply of chickens goes up, their value goes down. You won't be able to sell a chicken for $5 anymore if everybody has enough. But the point is taken that they produce a lot of food for how little upkeep they require.

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On the other hand, they also have a pretty clear floor on their sale value, because if the price drops too low, the farmer could just eat the meat/eggs themselves.

You might think so, but the Commerce clause has been interpreted to mean that raising food for your own consumption is restraint of trade between the several states:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

"An Ohio farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat for use to feed animals on his own farm. The U.S. government had established limits on wheat production based on acreage owned by a farmer, in order to stabilize wheat prices and supplies. In 1941 Filburn grew more than the limits permitted and he was ordered to pay a penalty of $117.11. "

After all, that food you raised for yourself prevented you from needing to buy food from another state, and so, well....

There is no Commerce Clause in Africa.

Yet.

To be more clear: The commerce clause was interpreted such as to allow the federal government to impose limits on agricultural production even when the food is being used to feed your own animals.

We already have numerous such restrictions (e.g., brewing beer).

A key point in this, in fact, was that it doesn't matter if it's being produced for your own (animals) consumption vs. for sale.

But that has nothing to do with whether the pure act of raising your own food is restraint of trade, absent restrictions on production. If you were raising the food in a way that it was legal to sell it, you're raising it in a way that's legal for your own animals to eat as well.

you should read deeper into Wickard. SCOTUS decalred washing your dishes to be considered commerce. For more information on the extent of the Commerce Clause into your life, I'd suggest looking at Clarence Thomas' dissent in Raich v. Gonzalez. it's an eye-opener.

Oh, absolutely. (I've read wickard, but not the dissent you mention). I was trying to clarify that the issue was not that it is somehow illegal to eat your own food. The issue was that there was a federal limit that was being violated, and - as you note - the commerce clause was used to justify why even a seemingly local use was subject to federal regulation.

This is why the whole bureaucratic nightmare that is the EU Common Agricultural Policy exists: your profits as a farmer are dependent on a number of random factors including how many other people are doing well in your industry.

It's very easy for an agricultural industry to go through cycles of overproduction which drive people into bankruptcy (and sometimes suicide), then shortage resulting in high prices.

Having poor transport links (often the case in rural Africa) makes the problem worse, as this instability plays out in each little isolated market.

I've read multiple investment thesis refer to that as the "chicken cycle", happening every 2-3 years. Here's of of those analysis if you're interested: https://www.dropbox.com/s/m91vexlccplfsje/Project%20Chicken%... (Page 7)

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