HAMPSHIRE chicken farmers are living in fear of attacks after a high-profile campaign by TV chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall against intensive farming methods.
Their crusade, screened nightly by Channel 4 this week, was billed as a bid to improve the welfare of the 860 million chickens reared for the dinner table in Britain ever year.
But one county chicken rearer, who asked for her identity to be protected because she was so frightened of retribution from animal rights activists, described the programmes as "absolutely diabolical" and said they risked driving hard-pressed farmers to suicide.
She added: "The animal welfare people could come in and burn the house down and that is the fear we live with all the time."
Full story in today's Daily Echo.
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