Ideal Home: the net zero poultry house for the future

The annual value of UK agriculture to the national economy is in the region of £122 billion (2018, DEFRA). The value of the UK poultry meat production sector alone, the second largest in Europe, to the UK economy increased by ~ 9% to £2.6billion (2018) with 1.24 billion birds producing in the region of 1.8 million tonnes of meat. This is a sector seeing continued expansion to meet retail demand where production was boosted by ~6% in 2018, the highest rate of any meat production sector (DEFRA, 2020). Such intensification has however to be balanced against the need for high levels of animal welfare and environmental protection, particularly when considered against national and international climate change targets. Globally the poultry meat production sector is responsible for 8% of agriculture emissions at ~ 100 CO2-eq/kg of protein produced. Against this backdrop mitigation methods such as animal health interventions and farm infrastructure/management improvements will be key for sustainable productivity increase (FAO, 2018).

Moy Park is one of the largest poultry integrators in the UK, with over 45 million birds housed at any one time. This equates to 2,396 houses across England and Northern Ireland.

A poultry house, with a life span of over 30 years, presents a significant capital investment for any farmer. Additionally, due to the nature of poultry production these houses have a significant demand for energy to control and provide heating, ventilation, lighting and operate feeding systems. The cost of building these houses, along with their running costs accounts for 33% of growing a chicken.

Therefore, from an industry perspective, to help achieve the net zero emission by 2040 in a sustainable manner that assures high animal welfare practices, work must start now. The _Ideal Home_ partnership, led by Moy Park Ltd., has developed a feasibility project that introduces a detailed baseline assessment identifying the current situation within "traditional" housing. Ideates and evaluates precision solutions for alternative housing systems to produce feasible, sustainable new approaches to poultry housing and management for improved well-being and performance, energy efficiency and improved resource efficiency.

_Ideal Home_ is an exciting project with high reward potential as it seeks to spur transformational change to sustainability and productivity across the UK's poultry production system. Net zero emission agriculture, tuned to feed the growing global population, can only succeed if improved production and sustainability are fully integrated into the food production process.