THE environmental impact of large-scale poultry farms is well known, causes many protests but has so far been tolerated quite well.

The economic benefits of having so many farms within a short distance of hatchery, broiler units, feed mill and processing plant seem obvious. Furthermore, modern hatching egg and broiler fattening sites are extremely well built, easy to clean and they provide a better environment for the birds than the poorly built, badly insulated building of the 1960s-1990s.

So why stop now? Surely what is working well now, could work even better if economies of scale were further optimised? That would indeed be the case unless areas of maximum density became ‘poultry sick’.

That happens when disease levels reach a point at which good husbandry standards of bio-security become impossible; primary (mainly viral) infections spread from site to site on the wind and secondaries (mainly bacterial) require more and more antibiotics.

To make matters worse, the farms producing hatching eggs can suddenly find themselves just downwind of a broiler fattening farm: two different sectors of the poultry industry with very different bio-security needs.

Planning at both company and county level is not ensuring this industry’s healthy future.

ANDREW GILLIAT Shobdon