In the time it takes to read this sentence, thousands of chickens who led a miserable, confined life will have been bagged for the supermarket. By the time you’ve read this article, you’ll never want to eat a Cheap Chicken again.

It’s said that the Eskimos have at least 15 words for “snow”, an indication of the ubiquity of the substance and its importance in the culture. Europeans should have at least that many words for “farmer”, One word meaning “industrial commodities farmer” and another for “real food farmer” etc. With only one word for farmer, we get an image of a peak-capped man on a trusty red tractor chugging towards his farm, which is full of different animals. The food industry plays on that image to make us think our food comes from someone trustworthy, rustic and smiling. It we had more words to describe farmers; we’d certainly have a category to describe the contract growers raising Chickens for companies. These farmers are usually harvested by the companies from the ranks of farmers who need a steady source of income. Maybe, they’re people who couldn’t make it on small acreage, bought more and then new equipment and thus acquired too much debt. Or maybe they’re just starting out and with limited credit. The company flashes money and makes promises. If you sign with us, we’ll supply the chicks and you sell back to us. We’ll even deliver the feed. You just supply the land and the labour. If it sounds less like farming and more like cut-throat industry then that is because, that’s exactly what it is: an industry. What a success the chicken industry is, worth an estimated 170 Million Euros to the Irish Economy every year. The “industry” has improved efficiency so much that Chicken is cheaper than it was 20 years ago, with a whole roast Chicken sometimes costing less than a pint of Guinness !! There is no doubt that the rise of Chicken consumption is driven by the market as many people give up red meat for health reasons and because they perceive it to be safer than other meats, after BSE etc. From Chicken Tonight to Chicken McNuggets and every possible Chicken product in-between, the humble Chicken has assumed an unrivalled position in the nation’s diet. On average, it is estimated that each of us eats more than 12 chickens per year.

But this is an industry that the public sees nothing of and knows virtually nothing about – you see cows, sheep and pigs on farms but the Irish consumer never sees the chickens behind the dark shed doors. It is left to animal welfare groups to blow the whistle on disturbing tales of diseased birds and unnatural lives. Joyce D’Silva of Compassion In World Farming is unequivocal : “it’s far better in terms of animal welfare that you eat a heifer or lamb that grows up in a field”. A modern Chicken Farm has virtually nothing in common with its predecessors of the past 50 years – not even the Chickens themselves !! Chickens, descended from South East Asian Jungle Fowl, were in the past kept for eggs and at the end of their egg-laying life were killed for meat. These older birds had a very strong gamey flavour. In the 1950’s, farmers in America and Europe started growing birds specifically for meat, this paved the way for the modern broiler industry. While broilers were bred to put on as much breast meat as quickly as possible, other hens were bred to lay big eggs as often as possible. The two types of Chicken now have virtually nothing in common. In your average Chicken Farm, birds cover the floor of enclosed sheds. They sit with an average space of 9 inches square per bird. There are no windows and the birds never see natural light. Small lights dangle from the roof keeping the light sufficiently low so that the birds aren’t too active. Full darkness sends birds to sleep, preventing them from eating and putting on weight so light is kept on for as long as possible. A recent report by the European Scientific Committee on Animal Health & Welfare found that Chickens are artificially bred to grow so fast that their legs can’t support their bodies. In the study, Chickens spent twice as much time as normal hens just sitting, with many of them suffering lameness. The Scientific Committee concluded “leg disorders are a major cause of poor welfare in broilers. Because of their fast growth rate, their hearts and lungs can no longer supply oxygen as fast as their hugely swollen muscles consume it. Frequently, they die of heart attacks and others suffer ascites (hugely swollen hearts)”. In these conditions, the small yellow chick grows to be a full chicken in an average of 31 days !!!

While terms like “bird-brained” have become part of our lexicon, it now seems that being compared to birds should be considered a compliment. A recent New York Times article paraphrased avian expert Chris Evans’s assessment of chickens’ faculties: “Chickens exist in stable social groups. They can recognize each other by their facial features. They have 24 distinct cries that communicate a wealth of information to one other, including separate alarm calls depending on whether a predator is travelling on the ground or in the air . They are good at solving problems. As a trick at conferences, I sometimes list these attributes, without mentioning chickens, and people always think I’m talking about monkeys.”

In Ireland there are virtually no laws to protect the welfare of Chickens, although the Government makes some recommendations on the stocking density (measured by the number of kg’s of bird per square metre). The EU Science Committee said that the stocking density must be no higher than 25kg (about 12 birds) per square meter for major welfare problems to be avoided. The Irish Government suggests no more than 34kg. It is not only animal welfare groups that are revolted by the industrialisation of Chicken Farming, but also some farmers themselves. In North Tipperary, the Organic Chickens of my partner Jens Krumpe are treated with extraordinary, almost comical care from the day they arrive. A warm shed bedded with fresh straw awaits the chicks when they arrive and after three molly-coddled weeks, they begin their free-range free-roaming life. Their homes outside sit in the middle of grassy fields. Within the sheds they have huge space and they are outside to roam as far as they like all day long. Each morning, Jens opens the door and the birds scatter all over the fields. He describes the scene “they hurtle out, full of energy, there’s quite a lot of insect life they can eat and they go all Yahoo, it’s a new day”. As well as insects the birds eat the grass, which is seeded with clover. The birds have perches, dust baths and plenty of natural shade provided by trees. Jens insists that growing birds to the organic standards of Demeter (which his produce is certified by) isn’t just a question of animal welfare, but also of taste. “The more grass and clover they eat, the tastier they are. The carotene in the grass gives the flesh colour and flavour. They have the real chicken taste that everyone remembers from childhood.

Organic birds live twice as long as factory birds, and the older the bird is, the stronger the flavour”. As someone who loves to cook, I would agree that most of the chicken available in supermarkets are like rubber or cotton-wool. They taste of nothing and in fact aren’t the good value that advertising leads us to believe. Most people think it’s cheap chicken, I just think it’s expensive water.

Buy a real chicken – have dinner, sandwiches, salads and soup all from one humble bird – that’s real value. If an animals sits still, it produces no flavour. I go for organic because if an animal is working, using its muscles then it produces flavour. This explains why in an Organic Chicken the legs usually have the most flavour – as the bearded rockers ZZ Top so eloquently put it “she’s got legs & she knows how to use them”. But I doubt they were talking about Chickens ! Imported Chicken meat is another story of madness- import a Chicken from Thailand, cut into and add breadcrumbs and hey presto, that Chicken is now labelled as Irish !! Disingenuous or clever, depending on your moral compass. Either way, it’s a scary prospect for consumers that has to be faced.

The recent reaction to Richard Corrigan’s forthright comments about the quality of Irish Chickens on RTE Radio was interesting because it demonstrated just how distant people are from the realities of main-stream Chicken production and the lies that people will choose to believe so they can have their cheap chicken and eat it. Needless to say the Irish Farmers Association commented pathetically that, “Mr Corrigan may need some publicity for his new restaurant, but he should not abuse a platform afforded to him by peddling ill-informed views about chicken production in this country…. All houses must have a controlled environment which ensures that ambient temperature, air quality and lighting meet the needs of the flock throughout the growing cycle”. Well, I don’t know about you but that description of laboratory-like conditions makes me feel a whole lot better !!

When I lived in West Africa, I worked up-country some of the time. The farm where my up country home was sited was run by a real salt-of-the-earth couple, who looked after me very well whenever I visited. I used to watch in fascination as Fatou Camara (in the autumn of her years, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind my saying) would come out of her kitchen in a spotless flowery dress , grab a passing chicken and have its head on a tree stump and her axe on its neck in one deft move. The headless chook would then run free for a full circuit of the yard before collapsing. Pretty soon, it was in the pot and these were really tasty chickens. I am not suggesting that we all take axe in hand wearing our flowery dresses like the example above but a little more thought (and yes more money) on chicken would mean more taste, more welfare, more local and more sustainable poultry production. In recent years, chicken has been removed from the centre-place of the dinner table and turned into something you can buy roasted in the local petrol station for a few euros. It’s an after-thought purchase made after you’ve paid for diesel or lotto numbers. It’s a pretty ignominious end for any bird but we do have a choice. Irish organic and free-range chickens are readily available in farmers markets, box schemes, on-line, supermarkets even. I look forward to the day when those of us who choose the organic, free-range chickens are not in the minority but those who choose the miserable, industrially produced ones are the minority and choosing a cheap chicken is a major social, moral and culinary faux-pas.

Note: check out www.planorganic.com for a listing of organic products available in Ireland, including Chickens.