Harvesting knowledge

Queuing politely in a bustling farmyard in Wytham was a man who knows a good deal about burgers, or at least the art of selling hundreds of millions of them, Steve Easterbrook, the president and chief executive of McDonald's UK.

Major General Peter Davies, director general of the World Society for the Protection of Animals, stood not far behind him, along with Philip Lymbery the chief executive of Compassion in World Farming.

If there were more corporate heads than you could shake a barbecue skewer at, the collection of academics was equally as impressive with Professor of Zoology Sir Brian Follet and Professor of Animal Behaviour Marian Stamp Dawkins among those from Oxford.

From Colorado State University there was Dr Temple Grandin, the most famous autistic woman on the planet; an animal lover said to have a legendary ability to read the animal mind, who happens to know more about slaughter houses than anyone in the western world.

But they had all really gathered in the Oxfordshire countryside to think about, rather than consume, food.

They had also come to see at first hand a five-year farming experiment that could ultimately improve conditions for tens of millions of farm animals across the globe.

For almost five years, Oxford University's 1,050-acre farming estate at Wytham has been playing a leading role in the world's first research project to learn directly from animals about the type of farm that best suits them.

In 2001 the farm's management was taken over by the Food Animal Initiative (FAI) whose ambition was to take animal benefits developed at Wytham into the competitive world of farming.

Not only has the subsequent venture held out the promise of improving animal conditions, it aims to show farmers that profits could be boosted by having happier animals, and less guilt-ridden consumers.

The project has seen the university's zoology department and other specialists working alongside commercial farmers, to open an enormous range of research possibilities.

The work has seen systems created which prevents pigs from chewing each other's tails and to help ease the calving process for cattle. There have been projects on turkey pecking and tree planting to encourage poultry to get out more and express themselves.

Initial long-term core funding came from Tesco and McDonald's, whose logos now sit a little incongruously with Oxford University's on publicity material. Sell-out or sound commercial sense? It depends which side of the farm fence you stand. But the RSPCA has also been strongly supportive of the project.

Yet as the supermarket supremos, fast food executives and scientists got down on the farm to monitor progress, there was some really fresh, exciting news: the big Wytham experiment is preparing to go global.

The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), as part of its campaign to improve conditions and outlaw the cruelest practices for farm animals, wants to export the Oxfordshire farm practices to China and Brazil, two of the world's biggest meat producing countries.

The two model farms might strike some as having limited impact given the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation estimates that some 4bn mammals and 55bn poultry are farmed every year. Most of these animals are either caged, chained or crammed and forced to grow super-fast, pumped full of antibiotics and pushed to their physical limit in the quest for ever more meat, milk or eggs.

China alone, which Mr Bonney has visited to begin the preliminary work, farms some 621m pigs, 6.9 bn chickens and 46.7bn laying hens and 2.1bn laying hens.

But Major General Davies has high hopes the Oxford model could make a difference. He said: "While the European Union slowly legislates to improve conditions for farm animals, intensive factory farming is exploding in the developing world.

"The idea is to take a lot of the work done here and take it overseas.

"If the model complexes created near Beijing and Brazil work, it will persuade governments, farmers and businessmen that they can go into farming on a commercial basis, but have high welfare standards as well. We are saying 'Don't rush into factory farming as the EU comes out of it whatever you do. You have a marvellous manpower resource. Go for a more organic approach. You will find an increasing market for organic food, particularly in Europe'."

Crucially, he sees the Oxford model as a way of "getting into China" and working with the authorities. But as well as lobbying decision makers and seeking to make Brazilian and Chinese consumers aware of the conditions in factory farms, there will be practical advice, with the offer of ongoing training in humane slaughter.

Roland Bonney, director of the FAI, explained: "Our role will be in developing model farms for chickens, pigs and cows that are appropriate to the climate and topography of these regions. We will then provide training, reassurance and hopefully inspiration to farmers in Brazil and China considering free range husbandry."

There has certainly been much to inspire British farmers at Wytham in recent years. The project might have such lofty aims as 'raising the ethical standards of food production' and making 'animal welfare a core component of the food chain', but ultimately it is judged on pioneering techniques and systems that can be transferred to working farms.

Prof Dawkins has always taken the view that being kind to animals does pay. If a chicken is scratched and bruised, the carcass has to be down-graded, she argues. And if animals are suffering, their productivity is lower and the meat is simply not so good.

Prof Dawkins has been studying chickens for more than 20 years ago. She rejects the old adage about animals in cages knowing nothing else just isn't true. Deep inside them, domestic animals know how to be wild. It's etched in their DNA and bursts forth whenever we let it.

Some things, such as allowing them to move around, seem obvious. Deciding which of their natural behaviours is essential for the animal's welfare is altogether more difficult, however. She highlights one profitable project which sees free range chickens sold directly to a supermarket chain. It began with a tree planting programme at Wytham and the Northmoor Trust at Little Wittenham to study a possible link between trees and the welfare birds. Data was collected covering bird welfare and whether free range bids pick up infections like Campylobacter, that can lead to human food poisoning. She stresses the value of such research given the huge rise in sales of free range chicken meat.

The farm is particularly proud of having reared pigs with tails on for three years without a single instance of tail biting. This triumph was achieved by ensuring that the pigs have plenty of good things like wood, chip and straw to root around in and by ensuring they stay with the same small group of pigs all their lives.

Further down the table Dr Grandin was holding court. Until she stormed on to the scene in the 1970s, animal welfare hardly existed at all in the meat industry. She almost single-handedly redesigned the equipment and buildings in which animals across America are slaughtered.

Something like half the cattle in the US go to their deaths in humane equipment designed by Dr Grandin, who at the age of three was labelled as being "retarded."

"We have come because we want to see a better way of doing things," she told me. "Research is important. But you have got to do things that are practical and commercially viable."

Even the McDonald's chief executive reckons his company his company is seeing direct benefits from its involvement.

Mr Easterbrook told me as he settled down for his lunch: "This is my third visit. It has become apparent to us that people are increasingly interested not only in the food they eat but in the practices behind it.

"We decided that building a relationship with the people would help us make progress through our supply chain. There have been a number of initiatives that they have been working on here over the three or four years that are having an impact."

He is particularly impressed with a selection breeding programme that allows cattle to be born without horns. Horns have no commercial value, can be dangerous to staff and would normally have to be burnt off. While Mr Easterbrook does not suppose all 16,000 of his beef suppliers are up to speed on developments in Wytham, he can recognise commercial potential when he sees it even on a farm full of boffins and exceptionally contented animals.

It is some achievement to run an enterprise dedicated to providing animals with what they want and at the same time gladden the heart of the McDonald's boss. Who says China and Brazil are a challenge too far?