Poverty more important than poultry welfare

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Delia Smith stated that cheaper, intensively farmed chickens are necessary to feed families that can’t afford organic, free-range meat.

“I certainly don’t like the way battery chickens are reared but, on the other hand, I’m aware we still have a lot of poverty, particularly among children, and I feel that’s a disgrace and we have got to make sure everybody gets enough nutritious food to eat in the first place,” she said.

She added that she could not get involved in the “politics of food” and, with regards to organic food, warned that the world’s population could not be fed on organic food alone. “If the whole world goes organic then the state of the Third World will really be twice as bad as it is at the moment, and I’m much more interested in people getting enough to eat,” she said.