Broiler battles: Contested intensive poultry unit developments in a policy void

Alison Caffyn

Land Use Policy, 2021, vol. 105, issue C

Abstract: Intensive livestock production in the UK is spatially concentrated in certain counties where its proliferation has triggered increasing controversy over multiple impacts and externalities. Planning authorities have struggled to handle the increasing contestation within a policy void and weakened institutional context, under the influence of the longstanding agricultural hegemony which normalises intensive farming. In the first significant UK study of such planning contestations this paper presents data on the rapid growth of the poultry industry in Herefordshire and Shropshire and how this triggered conflict during the 2010s between the agri-industrial sector and increasing numbers of objectors. Poultry farmer motivations are explored and a typology of farming situations is suggested. The paper reveals how a new public of objectors mobilised to campaign against intensive livestock developments on multiple environmental, economic, health and quality of life grounds. Tracing the power relations within and between the groups of actors reveals multiple uncertainties over impacts, particularly cumulative water and air pollution and a lack of trust in both technocratic planning processes and politicised decision making. The research suggests the planning authorities should address the policy void, acknowledge the uncertainties and take a more open, proactive and strategic approach to locating intensive livestock operations.

Keywords: Intensive poultry; Planning contestation; Policy; Publics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837721001381
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:105:y:2021:i:c:s0264837721001381

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105415

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang ().