The just-announced academic Chair of Poultry Welfare, at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, is the country’s first such chair, reports The Globe & Mail, saying that consumer concern over healthy poultry is behind the new research post. Canada’s poultry farmers are sponsoring the seven-year post, at a cost of C$100,000 a year. The university houses the largest number of animal research scientists in Canada, says the newspaper, which suggests the new chair will give the industry a public relations boost.

The chair “is one of three positions the Egg Farmers plan to fund as part of a long-term plan to take what spokesman Peter Clarke called a ‘proactive’ approach to preparing for the future. Mr Clarke said the investment has nothing to do with pressure from retailers or activists.”

The job is going to Tina Widowski, who heads the Campbell Research centre at Guelph, which studies animal housing, one of only two in the world, according to BetterFarming.

Switzerland’s laws covering poultry farming are relatively strict, but the 6.8 million birds cover only about half of what the Swiss population of 7.6 million consumes.