Raising Chickens in City Backyards: The Public Health Role

Pollock, Sue; Stephen, Craig; Skuridina, Nataliya; Kosatsky, Tom

doi:10.1007/s10900-011-9504-1

Cited by 63 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…There is limited data on the biosecurity risks of civic chicken production. Pathogen transmission from backyard chickens appears to be low but understanding and adherence to proper hygiene and animal husbandry would be needed to mitigate risks [71]. In addition to biosecurity, social issues and animal welfare are other considerations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential environmental and population health impacts of local urban food systems under climate change: a life cycle analysis case study of lettuce and chicken

Hall

Rothwell

Grant³

et al. 2014

Agric & Food Secur

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Background: Climate change is expected to have an impact on food production, processing and transport systems. While food systems have become globalized in recent decades, interest has re-emerged for local production and consumption to contribute to sustainable and secure food systems in an era of increasing urbanization and climate change. To explore environmental health issues related to the production of local food in an urban setting, a life cycle analysis screening study of two food commodities, chicken meat and lettuce, produced at industrial and civic scales was conducted in Sydney, Australia, as well as interviews with consumers and producers to explore their potential motivation to change. Methods: Determination of environmental impacts was performed using life cycle assessment (LCA) of two civic and one industrial scale producer for each commodity using SimaPro version 7.3.3. Impacts of global warming potential (GWP), land use and water use from the production of these commodities are reported. With a view to producing holistic insights to sustainable practices in Sydney, interviews with producers and consumers were undertaken to assess sociocultural outcomes including views on environmental food sustainability and other motivators of behavioral change. Results: Local industrial production of chicken meat was found to have a lower carbon footprint than small scale civic production. Small scale civic production of lettuce had a similar carbon footprint to local industrial production. Other environmental health benefits and risks varied across the production scales. Environmental sustainability was not generally a key concern of producers or consumers. Conclusions: Action can be taken to retain and promote food production in urban settings as a future means of assisting food security. The scale of production can be an important variable in assessing the environmental health impacts of food production in an urban setting. Currently neither producers nor consumers appear motivated to change practices to promote environmental sustainability.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential environmental and population health impacts of local urban food systems under climate change: a life cycle analysis case study of lettuce and chicken

Hall

Rothwell

Grant³

et al. 2014

Agric & Food Secur

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“…T he popularity of backyard flocks has steadily increased over the past several years (Crespo and Shivaprasad 2008;Pollock et al 2012). Sunset magazine listed backyard chickens as one of the "Top 100 Cultural Trends Shaping the West" in 2011 (Sunset 2011), and the number of websites, blogs and magazines devoted to urban chickens has increased exponentially.…”

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confidence: 99%

Popular Backyard Flock program reduces biosecurity risks of amateur production

Stinson¹,

Mete²

2013

Cal Ag

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The California Animal Health and Food Safety laboratories provide free necropsy (postmortem examination) services to owners of backyard poultry through the Backyard Flock program funded by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. We collected and analyzed data on the number of poultry submissions to the program between 2007 and 2012, the lab totals by location and the diseases diagnosed. During those 6 years, submissions increased 383%, with chickens representing 91% of them, and the greatest increases occurred in Santa Clara, Los Angeles and Sonoma counties. The necropsy data showed that the digestive (32.5%) and hemolymphatic (16.9%) systems were the most commonly affected. Marek's disease accounted for 13.3% of diagnoses (492 cases). With the rapid rise in the number of poultry being raised by amateur producers, biosecurity education is essential.

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“…Because there are concerns of pollution and infectious diseases (e.g. Salmonella), livestock is much less frequently raised in UA (Pollock et al 2012). A recent model based on the average annual diet in The Netherlands estimates that an average large city in Europe (1 million inhabitants) has an environmental "foodprint" (Stedelijke Foodprint 2012) (i.e.…”

Section: Provisioning Services Of Urban Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

Potential ecosystem services of urban agriculture: a review

Aerts

Dewaelheyns

Achten

2016

Preprint

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Urban agriculture (UA) is increasingly proposed as an environmentally friendly answer to global challenges including urbanization, public health, food security and climate change. We provide an overview of present evidence of ecosystem services delivered by UA that could potentially increase the sustainability of the urban ecosystem, including the often claimed reduced greenhouse gas emissions. There is general agreement that UA is important for local food production, especially in the south; that UA has a role in regulating green and blue water flows, organic waste flows and pollination; and that UA has important socio-cultural values, including an improved quality of city life and increased local community capacity. There is some evidence that UA may also improve human health because of dietary changes in certain social classes, but these are potentially confounded by environmental pollution in the city. Quantitative evidence is very limited for all ecosystem services, but the available data nevertheless suggests that the overall food productivity and the total reductions in greenhouse gas emission are low at global or city-wide scale despite the fact that UA has potential strong effects on food security at the local scale. The current eagerness of industrialized cities to integrate UA into their food policies as an approach to become "climate neutral" or to rely on ecosystem services to become more resilient calls for life cycle assessment studies that accurately quantify emission reductions and other urban ecosystem services of urban agriculture.

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Raising Chickens in City Backyards: The Public Health Role

Cited by 63 publications

References 22 publications

Potential environmental and population health impacts of local urban food systems under climate change: a life cycle analysis case study of lettuce and chicken

Potential environmental and population health impacts of local urban food systems under climate change: a life cycle analysis case study of lettuce and chicken

Popular Backyard Flock program reduces biosecurity risks of amateur production

Potential ecosystem services of urban agriculture: a review

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