Animal Board Invited Opinion Paper: Planet, people and poultry - more and better data needed to get the balance right

Abstract

Since the mid-20th century, the poultry industry, especially the commercial chicken components, has been celebrated by the animal agriculture sector as a major success story due to highly efficient production, significant investment in research, and globalisation of input and output value chains. Chickens were very well suited for rapid intensification as they were already efficient food converters with lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to ruminant livestock. Intensification, driven by the private sector and supported by government-funded research and regulation, relied on selective breeding (for high meat or egg yields), competitive production within economic systems where wider environmental issues (such as deforestation and biodiversity loss) are considered externalities, increased ability to diagnose and control disease with antimicrobials, disinfectants and vaccines and growing attention to animal welfare.