New chicken barn in Essex speaks to global peckishness

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An Essex district council has approved plans for a new barn that will house more than 26,000 chickens, despite animal welfare concerns. This is a local story emblematic of an international reality: the world is in love with chicken. A UN report found last week that the average individual eats roughly six times as much poultry as their grandparents’ generation, with the supply per person increasing from fewer than 3kg in 1961 to 17kg in 2022. Only the energy sector releases more greenhouse gas than agriculture, which is also a major cause of biodiversity loss. Livestock is expected to be responsible for 80% of the increase in emissions by the agricultural sector over the next decade. Chicken production has a lower climate impact than beef, but large-scale poultry farming is still blamed for a variety of environmental issues.