Emerging boundaries for poultry production: challenges, dangers and opportunities

Abstract

Poultry production has achieved outstanding biological and economic performance in the last 60 years as exceptional leadership harnessed science and business in the public interest, thus contributing powerfully to cheap, abundant food and improved quality of life. But unacceptable negative effects are now evident, adding to the threatened collapse in Western society that is being provoked by an unsustainable culture of materialistic consumption and self-interest. A supreme desire for profit dominates all public decisions and resource use. The balanced market economy system has been distorted into ‘Elite Capitalism’. In agriculture, this deformed economic model combined with ‘Elite Science’ threatens both food security and the social fabric of world society. Not only are established boundaries of economic behaviour being breached but, in the process, traditional boundaries are being violated in rule of law, justice, species integrity, community and morality. The current Elite Science and business model is unsustainable and must be reshaped before it leads to major catastrophe. Leaders in the poultry sector are challenged to again show their innovation and intellectual and moral courage by re-designing the poultry sector as an example for the whole food chain to ensure global food security, a sustainable socio-economic future for both rich and poor and the survival of civilized society.