Factory farming, whether we like it or not, has come to stay. The tide will not be held back, either by the humanitarian outcry of well meaning but sometimes misguided animal lovers, by the threat implicit to traditional farming methods, or by the sentimental approach to a rural way of life.
In a year which has been as uneventful on the husbandry side as it has been significant in economic and political developments touching the future of food procurement, the more far-seeing would name the growth of intensive farming as the major development.
This has had a great impact on the pattern of home agriculture ╤ and on the public conscience. The growth of these enterprises will almost certainly change the face of British farming in a couple of decades.
The way for public outcry over intensive husbandry methods had been prepared by Ruth Harrison╒s book, before Mr John Eastwood announced his plans for 12 million pullets to lay 2 per cent of the nation╒s egg requirements, or the Stowmarket enterprise started its quarrels with the local authority over plans to keep 10,000 barley-beef cattle in a single unit.
During 1964, the emotions aroused by the prospect of millions of birds and animals being kept in conditions which, at least offer protection from the cruelties of our climate, have been even more vocal than the storm of protest two years ago at the discovery that livestock had to be rescued from snow-drifts by wicked farmers who kept them outdoors on the high moors.
