Focusing specifically on the highly intensive poultry industry, the programmes were obviously put together with the intention of shocking a widely ignorant general public, with graphic images such as day old chicks being gassed and dispatched because they are male and thus unable to lay eggs. A bold attempt to prick even the hardest conscience.

Fortunately, as veterinary practitioners in rural Northumberland, we have virtually nothing to do with the intensive poultry industry, though from my college days I remember well seeing practice on a turkey unit. The "farm" concerned produced something like 100,000 birds each year, on an 18 week cycle, all of which went into processed food. Just a drop in the ocean with respect to the millions of birds reared every year but the unit had many of the hall marks of intensive production systems highlighted the other evening.

Of course, just because we don't see it first hand in Northumberland doesn't make it all right and this was the main point of Jamie Oliver's programme; that we as consumers cannot and should not divorce ourselves from the way in which our food is produced.

When watching these programmes, I am always slightly fearful of the public's response. The catastrophic results on the poultry industry of a few poorly chosen words from Edwina Curry are well documented after all. However, shocking though many of the scenes were, the real emphasis was not to stop us eating chicken, quite the opposite, the celebrity chef was his usual enthusiastic self encouraging us with tasty recipes, but using meat sourced from welfare friendly production systems.

For me, Jamie Oliver should be lauded for his approach as for once the finger was not pointed at the farmer but at retailers (namely the supermarkets) and how they manipulate consumers.

The supermarkets claim that the customer is only interested in one thing; price. Then using the mantra of cheaper food they use their purchasing power to drive down the "off the farm" price making many production systems barely profitable. Confronted with numerous shocking images, it is telling that one of the largest gasps emitted by the live audience was when they were told that for every £2.50 chicken sold by ASDA the farmer only makes 3p. Coincidently, this price makes the chicken cheaper than dog food.

Though it is the poultry industry that has been put under the microscope, Jamie Oliver's campaign is just as valid for other areas of farming. Beef and lamb farming in Northumberland is on the whole peerless with respect to the high levels of welfare achieved and quality of meat produced. However, unless the costs involved in these rearing systems are recognised and given their appropriate value, there is a real chance that many farms will be unable to continue.