The word from the founder of M.A.C. and N.D.B.S.
Those who wanted to investigate what the intensive poultry farming sector overlooks would be in for a disappointment.
However, it must be said that something neglected in the poultry industry is there … and it communication about one’s work, the one to be addressed to the consumer, which, more than neglected, is absent.
It is a fact, otherwise why else do a large number of people, perhaps even you reading this, still believe that industrial poultry farms are places where atrocities are consumed against chickens and where chickens are filled with hormones and antibiotics?
Just to give two examples, making use of reports distributed throughout Italy, I personally initiated a little “field” research showing that:
- some elementary school teachers unduly disseminate advice to pupils telling them to “prefer farmer’s chickens because supermarket chickens are full of antibiotics and hormones.”
- some employees in the departments of large-scale retail delis provide, to customers buying chicken, the misinformation that “there are chickens that cost more because they do not have antibiotics.”
Even just these two examples plastically represent how misinformation can expand unchecked by virtue of the fact that people on a daily basis in contact with a public who in turn absorb and amplify what they hear, believing that those who report it to them have some authority given only by the position they hold, while having no real expertise on the subject.
Why does this happen? Simple!
Because there are many people (perhaps even you reading this) who, rather than from the professional poultry industry, are more often than not reached by statements and alarms from environmentalists and animal rights activists who convey “suggestions” that are not information, doing so in an unfortunately effectively distorted and instrumental way.
The consumer, actual or potential, is constantly receiving alerts and cleverly manipulated statements that are able to downplay any creative artifice, advertising campaigns or commercial strategies deployed by poultry operators who unfortunately show interest in “selling their product” without bothering to consider that their very product is constantly the subject of articulate criticism that in any case also affects their sales. Because perhaps it is not clear enough to them that the employer of the industry is actually the consumer.
In such an alarmist-laden context, it is therefore a serious mistake to allocate resources for “to sell only the end of the work (chickens and eggs)” of a supply chain that is instead much more articulate and careful than a 30-second commercial designed by creatives “unaware” of how the sector works is capable of describing.
The silent behavior of the poultry industry describes serious short-sightedness, especially since the people who go to the supermarket are the same ones reached by the effective, albeit irresponsible and manipulated, demonization campaigns of the industry’s detractors.
Why did I decide to take care of it while waiting for the compartment to wake up?
Because I am a person who is professionally involved in communication.
I exercise the critical spirit with which we are all endowed
Like everybody, I am reached by the alarmist statements regarding an industry that I myself turn to for my nutrition. And so I want to know if there are those who are making fun of me and who they are, where they are, why they are doing it, …
And I decided to go deep. It was exhausting and nerve-wracking to be able to gather reliable, understandable information of some seriousness and depth, because the information that is there is in places that few people know about because it is not systematically disseminated, it is still information that is too technical and especially not designed to communicate with the consuming public.
However, the struggle to find sources capable of clarifying the critical points reported by certain associations has enabled me understand many of the reasons why the claims of those organizations are gaining momentum.
Meanwhile, it was a relief to discover that the modern poultry supply chain is totally different from what its detractors describe. It is in fact almost maniacally attentive and responsible, to the point that one wonders why the supply chain itself does not chorally go out of its way to show itself what it really is: attentive and never satiated with giving rise to improvements in animal welfare.
It is difficult to find a rational answer other than the observation that the system historically does not like to talk about itself in an informative sense, leaving room for the strangest fantasies.
Avoiding communication and/or responding to criticism has for years left the field open to those who, in a relatively short time, have built castles of instrumental inaccuracies by conveying them by and on effective means
Poultry companies are still fossilized in the constant production of objectively trivial commercials and sites that do not delve into the topics that would instead change the minds of those who today (and there are many) see chicken farmers “as the devil.”
The negative exceptions are there, but they are precisely exceptions that do not belong to the official supply chains, and they are-perhaps because of this-the ones targeted by activist associations that talk about them by making them appear to be the norm, subtly suggesting that the whole poultry world is like those two or three they manage to get into “by night with the help of accomplices of dubious reputation and ill-concealed intentions.”
Breeders and those who represent them have been making some timid communication initiatives for some time now, but these sound like lukewarm responses to the accusations they have received, without instead caring and developing a systematic narrative, regardless of the detractors.
And it is certainly not a solution to resort to the support of more or less well-known personalities who are notoriously accustomed to saying anything for a fee and who, precisely because of this established and well-known habit of selling themselves, would only increase the feeling of distrust.
Nor can it be of any real use to gloss over and continue to have redundant recipes for enjoying chickens and eggs … of which every program container and related sites are now full.
Instead, authority is needed because modern poultry farms, in their basic simplicity, are among the systems humankind uses to have healthy, high nutritional value, low-cost and therefore accessible food. This is why I have promoted, for example, a paradigm shift at
https://moreaboutchicken.com/feeding-the-planet-a-new-paradigm-for-the-poultry-sector/
https://nutriamocidibuonsenso.it/nutrire-il-pianeta-un-nuovo-paradigma-per-il-settore-avicolo/
In fact, intensive livestock farms (which it would be better to call protected because they protect animal health) are a role model because the care and research that goes into them protect the welfare, selection, and developmental care of the animals that contribute, directly and indirectly, to feeding a large part of the world’s population.
The quality of professional work and research in this field are not worthily represented by the communication that should accompany it to illustrate its paths and purposes.
Today, a stamp, or a few winking “BIO” statements, are no longer enough to spread knowledge that can win people’s trust in how the poultry industry works.
In fact, the work of the industry is crisscrossed with a number of studies and attentions that, if only by simply illustrating them in simple language, would positively astonish not only the end customer of the industry, but especially the detractors who, for years, have been working instead to create anxiety, disgust and fear toward poultry farmers.
It would be enough to read the long lists of attentions and obligations stipulated by the ASL to preventively ensure animal welfare in the poultry sector. But the industry has long gone far beyond these directions and, on its own initiative, even simply to protect its “business,” is constantly proceeding to study how to improve the stay of poultry on farms, because a chicken that is not well cannot be directed for sale.
It would be foolish not to consider that breeding is preparatory to the production of food for millions of people. Nevertheless, from the first to the last day of life the chick, which is destined to become a chicken, enjoys care that should be well told and illustrated.
https://nutriamocidibuonsenso.it/come-funziona-un-allevamento-intensivo-e-protetto-di-polli/
https://moreaboutchicken.com/how-an-intensive-and-protected-chicken-farm-works/
On a scientific level, research and development in poultry farming have reached a degree of attention to animal welfare (and consequently to the welfare of the entire chain that brings food to our tables) that is difficult to find in other sectors. And Italy, it must be said, is a country particularly in the vanguard.
Chicken and chicken eggs are hard-to-substitute solutions in terms of speed of supply, continuity, simplicity, and fully traceable and verifiable health safety … characteristics that perfectly meet the growing need for healthy, inexpensive food with high nutritional qualities, also linked to global population growth.
Therefore, the poultry supply chain should address and prevent public distrust and misconceptions about poultry farming systems.
Research conducted by Poultry World in Finland, Germany, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom showed the extent to which the public mistakenly believes that modern animal production methods do not respect basic concepts of animal welfare, such as the right to be able to express natural behaviors.
The research, conducted as part of a larger project, also revealed the concerns consumers have about the use of antibiotics in poultry (and pig) production, as well as the fact that they want to know more about how the food they eat was produced.
The content disseminated by this blog and www.nutriamocidibuonsenso.it is delivered with simple concepts, clear explanations even when articulated. Not only that. It is content that faithfully recounts what, how, why, and for whom intensive livestock farms that really should call themselves “protected” work.
It is freely accessible information, a reference point (without advertising) for the consuming public who knows little or nothing about this sector that produces food benefits in terms of availability, quality and accessibility.
These blogs are also intended to qualify the activities of the poultry industry by defending its reputation. An activity that is surprising is not considered by the industry as an initiative to be “acquired.”
Adapting the industry’s communication to these “market” demands would help improve public regard and trust toward the entire food chain … perhaps including your own as you read this
Browse this blog and www.nutriamocidibuonsenso.it and feel free to ask for more insights using the contact form.
Pietro Greppi
Ethic advisor – Creator of the new paradigm in the poultry sector
Founder of www.ad-just.it – www.moreaboutchicken.com – www.nutriamocidibuonsenso.it – www.ioetesiamopari.it
Scarp de tenis – the first Italian street newspaper dedicated to the homeless
