Rhubarb and chickens

After Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver’s investigations into chicken farming, there is much controversey about the goings on in some farm sheds but there has been no such concerns for the rhubarb growers in Yorkshire.

Grown in dark sheds, the first crop of Yorkshire forced rhubarb is currently being harvested and some of it will no doubt be in a crumble by this Sunday.

This time next year, Yorkshire rhubarb could well be afforded the same status as Parma ham and champagne if the European Commission decides to award it Protected Designation of Origin status.

As I have previously mentioned, Swaledale cheese currently has Yorkshire’s only PDO, something which will hopefully change during this year or the next, with Wensleydale cheese also seeking such status. In the meantime, best wishes to the farmers and hopefully this year’s rhubarb will be a better crop than last year’s, which suffered because of unusually warm temperatures.

Returning to the subject of chickens, the EU has now confirmed that it will be asking all member states to stick to their agreement to end the battery farming of chickens by 2012, despite calls from the industry for a delay.

The directive which will ban the use of caged chickens was formally adopted in 1999, giving the industry 12 years of preparation, so they cannot claim they have not been warned. As Channel Four’s series of programmes highlighted, for many people there are still serious ethical questions about the farming of some chickens but by 2012, the EU will have at least eradicated the very cruellest method, battery farming.