Today (Monday) saw the start of what wasn't immediately apparent as a food campaign taking place on Channel 4. Tuning in for the "Big Food Fight" I assumed from the trailers, forgetting the modern C4 style, that we'd have some offbeat adventure cooking program with three of the top TV chef's this country has to offer. In reality the line up of programming is probably a whole lot less humorous but vastly more insightful. Starting off as it means to go on the next two nights following this one will continue the program "Hugh's Chicken Run" which tonight started the journey of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on his crusade to get people buying free range chickens.

Chickens were the first ever livestock that I raised at River Cottage. They've been giving me eggs and meat all my life, and now I rear my own, for both eggs and meat. And I think they're the front line of animal welfare in this country, and the way in which they're farmed is something to which the public are denied access. You've got chicken farms with barbed wire all around them, which is not necessary to keep the birds in. I particularly target the supermarkets because they sell so much cheap chicken - it's right at the heart of their price wars with each other, and they use it to try and gain market share.

The above is the reason why Hugh has taken on such a mammoth project that will take three hour long documentaries to air fully...and as such, and given the absolute need of this issue to get out there in the public domain I want to follow it more responsively.

The program itself is about two things, the first being about the welfare of chickens bred in battery farm conditions while the second, the lesser issue, is that of the quality of the food that is produced. Taking place largely in Axeminster, his home town, the intention of his quest is to get some kind of co-operation with the large supermarkets, turn the whole town "Free Range" and to create a tide of reform towards abolishing the act of battery farming from the side of the consumer. Yeah, I think anyone reading is with me when I say that I'm not holding my breath that such a conclusion will be reached on Wednesday.

The question brought up is that of who's responsibility it is. Supermarkets claim that the only reason that they stock such products is because there is demand for it, while Hugh would rather believe that it is the pricing strategies that dictate what we will buy while uninformed and thus the supermarkets are acting irresponsibly. There have already been many a debate on the issue of consumer vs supermarket responsibility and it is one I don't wish to go in to in any great depth here. The issue of providing for "all economic backgrounds" vs animal welfare is a tricky subject for anyone considering themselves to be liberal at the best of times.

What I will say is that currently a Tesco cheapy chicken is £2.50 for 1.4kgs if you buy two at the same time, while their free range corn fed variety is £3.58 for 1kg. For the better quality meat this could be, for arguments sake, just under £2.20 a week more on the shopping budget and while I will always accept some people are on terrible incomes that an extra £100 a year on a food bill (if they have chicken twice a week all year) will greatly impact, I also have to wonder what other expensive crap could be cut out to balance the books. But I digress.

After this entry into the debate about the world of the existence of the less well off chicken, killed after 39 days to feed our 2 for £5 habit, the program moved on very interestingly to the process of trying to get a deeper insight into the way these chickens are raised. Not surprisingly no farmer in the country that uses the broiler house method of farming was interested in showing their trade on camera. The whole industry, it seems, is self conscious and afraid of how documentaries like this will spin their trade for the worse. One farmer was quite happy to talk about his dislike of the supermarkets and largely agreed with Hugh's quest, but by god he was never going to let a camera see his chickens. All in all how can we, a nation that really hasn't ever dealt with the issue of terrorism surrounding the politics of animal welfare, justify putting people that are working as hard as they can within the system that currently exists in to potentially life threatening danger? And if you weren't sure about how seriously some of these farmers take their job even in the conditions we deem to be poor for the chickens, then it would be made clear later in the program.

Because of course the big talking point about this is the great moral dilemma posed. If no-one is going to let him see the conditions and film them to get the point across to people about the quality of life and taste of the food we eat how can he get the point across at all? Of course by setting up his own broiler house and starting an experiment to compare those chickens raised in such a way to free range chickens just next door. The task is immensely complicated and I congratulate, at least for now, his nerve and dedication to take a brief respite from all of his moral senses for the potential greater benefit to his cause in the future. Luckily he also has one farmer, risking his own reputation...he receives threats from others in the industry about how his involvement has to portray the industry in a good light...to make sure everything is done properly. Rather than this being a demon being brought in to the mix, it is a perfect way to show that these farmers are just doing their job, and a whole lot more conscientiously than most of us would think of doing the same task. All in all the industry's practices probably couldn't have hoped to have come off as well as they did in this first episode.

And while this is the meat of the show, there are the subplots, getting a local big employer's canteen to use free range chicken, and trying to help the more impoverished in Axeminster understand why free range is better by getting them to raise free range chickens on their allotment. While personally I think that the perception of cheap value will unfortunately mean this is much for naught in such sections of our society, it is commendable to see him try.

I look forward greatly to the next episode to see where this goes, and furthermore what the rest of the week holds in store. If it is as meaningful and well presented as the work I've just talked about then hopefully it'll be receiving more interest from more sources that can really get the message out there about food quality and standards.