Public awareness of food standards and farm production practices has been a feature of the past 10 years in British agriculture. Although higher standards of living and education generally make society more inquisitive, scrutiny of the food chain took on new meaning in the wake of the BSE crisis in the mid-1990s. The current media frenzy surrounding avian influenza and the impact that this is having on poultry consumption in several EU countries (France, Italy and Greece) demonstrates the level of public attention that the industry can be subjected to -and the consequences it can have on farmers' livelihoods.
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