The Lie of the Land

I watched two interesting, but disturbing programmes last night. The first was the second part of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's 'Chicken Run' programme.

Hugh is highlighting the plight of the cheap supermarket chicken by setting up his own intensive chicken farm and rearing 4,000 birds. It's not a pretty sight. Only a few days from slaughter the birds were virtually unable to stand amd all they did was stagger between the food and water. Visitors - including Jamie Oliver - were horrified. "Why aren't they walking about?" Jamie asked, appalled. They couldn't. Their bloated bodies (the bits we eat) were too heavy.

The birds had no space to move around in, no access to the outdoors and no natural light. Hugh ended up in tears after having to kill yet another sick bird. Part three is tonight (9pm, Channel Four). All he wants is for consumers to pay £1 extra and buy a free range bird. It's not too much to ask is it?

Later I watched Molly Dineen's documentary "The Lie of the Land" in which she followed some of the protesters from the pro-hunt demonstration in London home to see how someone lived when their life depended on the countryside. She watched as the huntsman spent his days going from dairy farm to dairy farm shooting day old 'worthless' dairy crossbreed bull calves. She interviewed farmers who didn't know how they were going to continue farming when everything they produced was sold at a loss.

One farmer said of the supermarkets: "They are superpowers. We're nothing really. They just buy it where they can get it cheapest."

Another said: "The welfare standards of imported food is a damn site worse that we've got here. All you are doing is exporting your problems."

Another, who had been shooting foxes he said would have been much more humanely killed by dogs said: "Everyone's focussed on sport, because you can see it. But nobody's interested in how their food is produced. Look at battery chickens. Why is that acceptable, but hunting and shooting isn't?"

I can't help but think that both programmes were probably preaching to the already converted. I don't think that the anti-hunt supporters shouting at the pro-hunt "privileged toffs" to go home would watch such programmes and if they did would they watch them with an open mind? Do they realise that some of the "privileged toffs" are just hard-working ordinary people - like themsevles - flirting with poverty? They're not all rich princes and earls. Some are, of course. The ones shown on the documentary were not.

The divide between city and country seems to be widening. Farmers are portrayed as fat, greedy, money-grabbing and cruel. In the suburbs it seems to me that the general opinion is that farmers do not love their animals. Last night they would have seen that, when the huntsman was shooting these doe-eyed calves, only one farmer was present. The others could not bear to be there when the knackerman came and instead left the money in a carrier bag (ironically a Tesco carrier bag in one case). One even left a bag of fudge. For the life of a calf.

The programme ended with a farmer, a dying breed, he said, who has a suckler herd. He described his business as 'borderline'. He then went to a field gate and called to his herd which were grazing two fields away. At the sound of his voice the cows and calves lifted their heads and started replying. They ran down the slope to a hedge and mooed enthusiastically.

"They can't get out down there," said the farmer. "If they really love me they'll go back up the hill and through the other gate."

Molly Dineen was astonished.

"They come when you call?" she asked.

"Of course," said the farmer. "They're my girls."

They loved him.