It must have been the late 1970s; a large group of Chinese engineers were over in the UK on a prolonged cultural exchange/educational visit. I often saw them travelling up & down in the lift at work.
What was sad, or shocking or disturbing about this group of men, who after all must have been highly educated & from what we would have regarded as the ‘better off’ section of society, was that they all showed signs of malnutrition, most obviously in various slight skeletal malformations or sometimes downright deformity.
Well the history of famine in China constitutes a special case, but in 1960 when the population of the world was a mere 3 billion we were being taught that ‘Two thirds of the world goes to bed hungry each night’, & to be seriously concerned about the prospects for future food supplies. I particularly remember the scientists who promised the development of one small pill which could provide all we need, & talk about denatured protein (don’t ask).
Instead we humans went on to experience an astonishing increase in longevity.
It was the poor chicken what got it.
Or at least so I was thinking as I read one section of David Edgerton’s The shock of the old: technology and global history since 1900.
In 1960 there were some 4 billion chickens in the world.
By 2000 there were 13 billion.
And they have become nearly twice as heavy on only half as much feed as they used to need. They should exercise more!
The results are predictable – they live much shorter lives, killed at half the age they used to be.
The number killed for meat per year rose from 6 billion to 45 billion.
The question for those who would rather chickens were better treated remains – how would you have fed the people?
