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Done like a chicken dinner: city fringes locked in battles over broiler farms

Elizabeth Taylor and colleagues write in The Conversation (7.3.16) about planning disputes in cities’ urban fringes over increasing use of land for mass-production farms. The authors cite their research into the growing incidence of ‘broiler farms’ for intensive chicken farming.

‘Once upon a time, chicken was a luxury few could regularly afford. It was a rare meal reserved for special occasions. Yet since 1965 the per-capita annual consumption of chicken meat in Australia has increased ten-fold from 4.6 kilograms per person in 1965 to 44.6 kilograms in 2012.

‘The retail price of chicken per kilogram has decreased steadily in real terms from around A$9.67 in 1986 to A$5.67 in 2009. The arrival of Kentucky Fried Chicken in Australia in 1968coincided with rapid increases in consumption. Today, Australians consume more than 600 million chickens per year.

‘The vast majority is produced in intensive “broiler” farms. How does chicken production and consumption on such a scale affect the foodbowls on the outskirts of our cities?’

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