As we come to the time of Peak Food, after which the amount of basic food available for each person in the world declines as population continues to rise, it is crucial that the conversion of feed in to meat is as efficient as possible.

This is where poultry has a big advantage. It can take less then 2kg of high quality feed to produce 1 kg of poultry meat compared with up to 10 kg for beef and somewhere in between for pork.

Dr Merdo MacLoed, editor-in-chief of British Poultry Science recently presented the result of a year long study into the importance of research in UK poultry and said,” At a time of concerns about climate change, the environment and human population growth, we should be positive about what the poultry industry has to offer.

“The industry has been on the defensive for many years but objective analysis shows that poultry meat and egg production have important advantages over other ways of producing animal protein.”

We agree that poultry should be the main method of meat production in the future, but we also believe that there will need to be less meat in our diets so that more grains and legumes can be eaten directly by humans.