“We need to think about how best we

can feed ourselves and look after the

planet. Veganism is not the answer”

eter Grieg (aka ‘Piper’ of Pipers

Fa r m in Devon) is in a Br istol

restaurant brandishing a cowpat.

The freshly harvested cowpat has

travelled from the farm with

Peter, his wife and fellow farmer

Henri, and the Pipers team to a

‘meet the producers’ event at The Ethicurean, one of

the many good restaurants that buy their meat directly

from them. “This magnificent cowpat is a footprint of

sustainability and biodiversity,” Peter begins as he

goes on to give a compelling talk about the

industrialisation of the meat industry and what he

calls Pipers “horse and cart” style of farming. 

Animal welfare and sustainable farming lie at the

heart of Pipers Farm and Henri and Peter pride

themselves on the low input farming methods

(minimising the use of ‘off farm’ materials such as

feed, pesticides and fertilisers) they have been

practising for 29 years. However, it was their

experience at the other end of the scale that inspired

them to do things differently. After graduating from

Wye College in Kent where they met studying

agriculture, the couple spent time farming in

Australia, New Zealand and then Wensleydale in

North Yorkshire before coming back to Peter’s home in

Kent, where they took over his father’s chicken farm.

“My father brought the concept of industrialised

chicken farming back to the UK from America in the

1950s,” explains Peter. For two years the couple

Peter and Henri Grieg of Pipers Farm applaud vegans’ stance against industrial farming,

but it’s not a case of meat versus plants, they tell Rebecca Frank

farmed chickens for a supermarket chain before their

principles forced them into making a life-changing

decision. “In the 1950s it took 50 days to grow a 4lb

ch icken, in 1989 we had 35 days. Now it ’s 28,” expla ins

Henri. Growing industrial chickens requires the use of

genetics and antibiotics to enable the fast growing and

prevent disease. The chickens suffer from health

problems because they’re oversized and kept in

cramped conditions where they’re standing or sitting

in their own muck. “We were doing ¼ million

chickens a year off a ¼ acre site. These birds are

squashed into a barn so cramped that you cannot lift

your feet as you walk through it. There’s muck all over

the f loor and the light has to be low all the time or they

eat each other. The birds have no immunity because

they’re grown so fast; it’s dark, warm and damp and

bacteria is rife, so the only way to keep them alive is

with antibiotics. And this is the reality for over 90% of

the chickens on sale today.” Henri explains how 29

years ago, they were warning medics that if people go

on eating antibiotics in their poultry, we were going to

face antibiotic resistance. “Nobody believed us

because we were only farmers.”

By this time, Peter and Henri had two young sons,

Ed and Will, and one day they turned to each other and

said, “This is madness, we’re producing meat we would

never feed our kids.” And that became the benchmark

for Pipers: “to provide meat that we would be happy

to feed our own children”. The couple was inspired by

the low input farming they had experienced in New

P