title: Poultry farming

text: According to the World Watch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry meat, and 68 percent of eggs are produced intensively. One alternative to intensive poultry farming is free-range farming using lower stocking densities. Poultry producers routinely use nationally approved medications, such as antibiotics, in feed or drinking water, to treat disease or to prevent disease outbreaks. Some FDA-approved medications are also approved for improved feed utilization.


title: Poultry farming

text: A chicken coop or hen house is a structure where chickens or other fowl are kept safe and secure. There may be nest boxes and perches in the house. There is a long-standing controversy over the basic need for a chicken coop. One philosophy, known as the "fresh air school" is that chickens are mostly hardy but can be brought low by confinement, poor air quality and darkness, hence the need for a highly ventilated or open-sided coop with conditions more like the outdoors, even in winter. However, others who keep chickens believe they are prone to illness in outdoor weather and need a controlled-environment coop. This has led to two housing designs for chickens: fresh-air houses with wide openings and nothing more than wire mesh between chickens and the weather (even in Northern winters), or closed houses with doors, windows and hatches which can shut off most ventilation.


title: Poultry farming

text: Commercial hens usually begin laying eggs at 16–21 weeks of age, although production gradually declines soon after from approximately 25 weeks of age. This means that in many countries, by approximately 72 weeks of age, flocks are considered economically unviable and are slaughtered after approximately 12 months of egg production, although chickens will naturally live for 6 or more years. In some countries, hens are force moulted to re-invigorate egg-laying.


title: Poultry farming

text: Environmental conditions are often automatically controlled in egg-laying systems. For example, the duration of the light phase is initially increased to prompt the beginning of egg-laying at 16–20 weeks of age and then mimics summer day length which stimulates the hens to continue laying eggs all year round; normally, egg production occurs only in the warmer months. Some commercial breeds of hen can produce over 300 eggs a year.


title: Poultry farming

text: Free-range poultry farming allows chickens to roam freely for a period of the day, although they are usually confined in sheds at night to protect them from predators or kept indoors if the weather is particularly bad. In the UK, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) states that a free-range chicken must have day-time access to open-air runs during at least half of its life. Unlike in the United States, this definition also applies to free-range egg-laying hens. The European Union regulates marketing standards for egg farming which specifies a minimum condition for free-range eggs that "hens have continuous daytime access to open air runs, except in the case of temporary restrictions imposed by veterinary authorities". The RSPCA "Welfare standards for laying hens and pullets" indicates that the stocking rate must not exceed 1,000 birds per hectare (10 m per hen) of range available and a minimum area of overhead shade/shelter of 8 m per 1,000 hens must be provided.


title: Poultry farming

text: Free-range farming of egg-laying hens is increasing its share of the market. Defra figures indicate that 45% of eggs produced in the UK throughout 2010 were free range, 5% were produced in barn systems and 50% from cages. This compares with 41% being free range in 2009.


title: Poultry farming

text: Suitable land requires adequate drainage to minimise worms and coccidial oocysts, suitable protection from prevailing winds, good ventilation, access and protection from predators. Excess heat, cold or damp can have a harmful effect on the animals and their productivity. Free range farmers have less control than farmers using cages in what food their chickens eat, which can lead to unreliable productivity, though supplementary feeding reduces this uncertainty. In some farms, the manure from free range poultry can be used to benefit crops.


title: Poultry farming

text: The benefits of free range poultry farming for laying hens include opportunities for natural behaviours such as pecking, scratching, foraging and exercise outdoors.


title: Poultry farming

text: Both intensive and free-range farming have animal welfare concerns. Cannibalism, feather pecking and vent pecking can be common, prompting some farmers to use beak trimming as a preventative measure, although reducing stocking rates would eliminate these problems. Diseases can be common and the animals are vulnerable to predators. Barn systems have been found to have the worst bird welfare. In South-East Asia, a lack of disease control in free range farming has been associated with outbreaks of Avian influenza.


title: Poultry farming

text: Instead of keeping them in cages, free-run laying hens roam freely within an enclosed barn. This type of housing also provides enrichment for the hens, including nesting boxes and perches that are often located along the floor of the barn. Many believe that this type of housing is better for the bird than any caging system, but it has its disadvantages, too. Due to the increase in activity of the birds, dust levels tend to elevate and the air quality decreases. When air quality drops, so does production as this compromises the health and welfare of both birds and their caretakers.


title: Poultry farming

text: In organic egg-laying systems, chickens are also free-range. Organic systems are based upon restrictions on the routine use of synthetic yolk colourants, in-feed or in-water medications, other food additives and synthetic amino acids, and a lower stocking density and smaller group sizes. The Soil Association standards used to certify organic flocks in the UK, indicate a maximum outdoors stocking density of 1,000 birds per hectare and a maximum of 2,000 hens in each poultry house. In the UK, organic laying hens are not routinely beak-trimmed.


title: Poultry farming

text: While often confused with free range farming, yarding is actually a separate method by which a hutch and fenced-off area outside are combined when farming poultry. The distinction is that free-range poultry are either totally unfenced, or the fence is so distant that it has little influence on their freedom of movement. Yarding is a common technique used by small farms in the Northeastern U.S. The birds are released daily from hutches or coops. The hens usually lay eggs either on the floor of the coop or in baskets if provided by the farmer. This husbandry technique can be complicated if used with roosters, mostly because of their aggressive behavior.


title: Poultry farming

text: The majority of hens in many countries are housed in battery cages, although the European Union Council Directive 1999/74/EC has banned the conventional battery cage in EU states from January 2012. As of April 1, 2017, no new battery cages are able to be installed in Canada. Farmers must move towards enriched housing or use a cage-free system. In 2016, the Egg Farmers of Canada announced that the country's egg farmers will be transitioning away from conventional hen housing systems (battery cages) and have no conventional caging left by 2036. These are small cages, usually made of metal in modern systems, housing 3 to 8 hens. The walls are made of either solid metal or mesh, and the floor is sloped wire mesh to allow the feces to drop through and eggs to roll onto an egg-collecting conveyor belt. Water is usually provided by overhead nipple systems, and food in a trough along the front of the cage replenished at regular intervals by a mechanical system.


title: Poultry farming

text: Battery cages are arranged in long rows as multiple tiers, often with cages back-to-back (hence the term). Within a single barn, there may be several floors containing battery cages meaning that a single shed may contain many tens of thousands of hens. Light intensity is often kept low (e.g. 10 lux) to reduce feather pecking and vent pecking. Benefits of battery cages include easier care for the birds, floor-laid eggs (which are expensive to collect) are eliminated, eggs are cleaner, capture at the end of lay is expedited, generally less feed is required to produce eggs, broodiness is eliminated, more hens may be housed in a given house floor space, internal parasites are more easily treated, and labor requirements are generally much reduced.


title: Poultry farming

text: In farms using cages for egg production, there are more birds per unit area; this allows for greater productivity and lower food costs. Floor space ranges upwards from 300 cm per hen. EU standards in 2003 called for at least 550 cm per hen. In the US, the current recommendation by the United Egg Producers is 67 to 86 in (430 to 560 cm) per bird. The space available to battery hens has often been described as less than the size of a piece of A4 paper (623 cm). Animal welfare scientists have been critical of battery cages because they do not provide hens with sufficient space to stand, walk, flap their wings, perch, or make a nest, and it is widely considered that hens suffer through boredom and frustration through being unable to perform these behaviours. This can lead to a wide range of abnormal behaviours, some of which are injurious to the hens or their cagemates.


title: Poultry farming

text: In 1999, the European Union Council Directive 1999/74/EC banned conventional battery cages for laying hens throughout the European Union from January 1, 2012; they were banned previously in other countries including Switzerland. In response to these bans, development of prototype commercial furnished cage systems began in the 1980s. Furnished cages, sometimes called 'enriched' or 'modified' cages, are cages for egg-laying hens which have been designed to allow the hens to perform their "natural behaviors" whilst retaining their economic and husbandry advantages, and also provide some of the welfare advantages of non-cage systems. Many design features of furnished cages have been incorporated because research in animal welfare science has shown them to be of benefit to the hens. In the UK, the Defra "Code for the Welfare of Laying Hens" states furnished cages should provide at least 750 cm of cage area per hen, 600 cm of which should be usable; the height of the cage other than that above the usable area should be at least 20 cm at every point and no cage should have a total area that is less than 2000 cm. In addition, furnished cages should provide a nest, litter such that pecking and scratching are possible, appropriate perches allowing at least 15 cm per hen, a claw-shortening device, and a feed trough which may be used without restriction providing 12 cm per hen. Furnished cages (Enriched) give the hens more space than the conventional battery cages, so that each bird may spread their wings without touching one another if desired. Enrichment such as nest boxes, perches, and dust baths are also provided so that the birds may carry out their natural behaviors such as nesting, roosting, and scratching as though they were outdoors.


title: Poultry farming

text: Enrichment of laying hen cages ultimately results in better bone quality. This is a result of the increased activity in the hens from the additional space and enrichment provided in the furnished housing system.


title: Poultry farming

text: Although the enriched housing system has its advantages such as reduced aggression towards one another and cleaner eggs, modern egg laying breeds often suffer from osteoporosis which results in the chicken's skeletal system being weakened. During egg production, large amounts of calcium are transferred from bones to create egg-shell. Although dietary calcium levels are adequate, absorption of dietary calcium is not always sufficient, given the intensity of production, to fully replenish bone calcium. This can lead to increases in bone breakages, particularly when the hens are being removed from cages at the end of laying. Osteoporosis may be prevented by free range and cage-free housing systems, as they have shown to have a beneficial impact on the skeletal system of the hens compared to those housed in caged systems.


title: Poultry farming

text: Countries such as Austria, Belgium or Germany are planning to ban furnished cages until 2025 additionally to the already banned conventional cages.


title: Poultry farming

text: Meat chickens, commonly called broilers, are floor-raised on litter such as wood shavings, peanut shells, and rice hulls, indoors in climate-controlled housing. Under modern farming methods, meat chickens reared indoors reach slaughter weight at 5 to 9 weeks of age, as they have been selectively bred to do so. In the first week of a broiler's life, it can grow up to 300 percent of its body size. A nine-week-old broiler averages over 9 pounds (4 kg) in body weight. At nine weeks, a hen will average around 7 pounds (3.2 kg) and a rooster will weigh around 12 pounds (5.5 kg), having a nine-pound (4 kg) average.


title: Poultry farming

text: Broilers are not raised in cages. They are raised in large, open structures known as grow out houses. A farmer receives the birds from the hatchery at one day old. A grow out consists of 5 to 9 weeks according to how big the kill plant wants the chickens to be. These houses are equipped with mechanical systems to deliver feed and water to the birds. They have ventilation systems and heaters that function as needed. The floor of the house is covered with bedding material consisting of wood chips, rice hulls, or peanut shells. In some cases they can be grown over dry litter or compost. Because dry bedding helps maintain flock health, most growout houses have enclosed watering systems ("nipple drinkers") which reduce spillage.


title: Poultry farming

text: Keeping birds inside a house protects them from predators such as hawks and foxes. Some houses are equipped with curtain walls, which can be rolled up in good weather to admit natural light and fresh air. Most growout houses built in recent years feature "tunnel ventilation," in which a bank of fans draws fresh air through the house.


title: Poultry farming

text: Traditionally, a flock of broilers consist of about 20,000 birds in a growout house that measures 400/500 feet long and 40/50 feet wide, thus providing about eight-tenths of a square foot per bird. The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) states that the minimum space is one-half square foot per bird. More modern houses are often larger and contain more birds, but the floor space allotment still meets the needs of the birds. The larger the bird is grown the fewer chickens are put in each house, to give the bigger bird more space per square foot.


title: Poultry farming

text: Because broilers are relatively young and have not reached sexual maturity, they exhibit very little aggressive conduct.


title: Poultry farming

text: Chicken feed consists primarily of corn and soybean meal with the addition of essential vitamins and minerals. No hormones or steroids are allowed in raising chickens.


title: Poultry farming

text: In intensive broiler sheds, the air can become highly polluted with ammonia from the droppings. In this case, a farmer must run more fans to bring in more clean fresh air. If not, this can damage the chickens' eyes and respiratory systems and can cause painful burns on their legs (called hock burns) as well as blisters on their feet. Broilers bred for fast growth have a high rate of developing leg deformities because their large breast muscles cause distortions on their developing legs and pelvis, leading to them often being unable to support their body weight. In cases where the chickens become crippled and can no longer walk, farmers have to go in and pull them out. Because of their difficulty moving, the chickens cannot change their environment to avoid heat, cold, or dirt as they would in natural conditions. The added weight and overcrowding also puts a strain on their hearts and lungs, possibly leading to Ascites. In the UK, up to 19 million broilers die in their sheds from heart failure each year. In a heat wave, if a power failure shuts down the ventilation, 20,000 chickens could die in a short period of time. In a good grow out, a farmer should sell between 92% and 96% of their flock, with a 1.80 to a 2.0 feed conversion ratio. After marketing the birds, the farmer must clean out and prepare for another flock. A farmer should average 4 to 5 grow outs a year.


title: Poultry farming

text: In a "higher welfare" system, chickens are kept indoors but with more space (around 14 to 16 birds per square metre). They have a richer environment for example with natural light or straw bales that encourage foraging and perching. The chickens grow more slowly and live for up to two weeks longer than intensively farmed birds. The benefits of higher welfare indoor systems are the reduced growth rate, less crowding and more opportunities for natural behaviour.


title: Poultry farming

text: One example of indoor production with higher welfare production is the Better Chicken Commitment standard.


title: Poultry farming

text: Free-range broilers are reared under similar conditions to free-range egg-laying hens. The breeds grow more slowly than those used for indoor rearing and usually reach slaughter weight at approximately 8 weeks of age. In the EU, each chicken must have one square metre of outdoor space. The benefits of free-range poultry farming include opportunities for natural behaviours such as pecking, scratching, foraging and exercise outdoors. Because they grow slower and have opportunities for exercise, free-range broilers often have better leg and heart health.


title: Poultry farming

text: Organic broiler chickens are reared under similar conditions to free-range broilers but with restrictions on the routine use of in-feed or in-water medications, other food additives and synthetic amino acids. The breeds used are slower growing, more traditional breeds and typically reach slaughter weight at around 12 weeks of age. They have a larger space allowance outside (at least 2 square metres and sometimes up to 10 square metres per bird). The Soil Association standards indicate a maximum outdoors stocking density of 2,500 birds per hectare and a maximum of 1,000 broilers per poultry house.


title: Poultry farming

text: Animal welfare groups have frequently criticized the poultry industry for engaging in practices which they assert to be inhumane. Many animal rights advocates object to killing chickens for food, the "factory farm conditions" under which they are raised, methods of transport, and slaughter. Animal Outlook (formerly Compassion Over Killing) and other groups have repeatedly conducted undercover investigations at chicken farms and slaughterhouses which they allege confirm their claims of cruelty.


title: Poultry farming

text: A common practice among hatcheries for egg-laying hens is the culling of newly hatched male chicks since they do not lay eggs and do not grow fast enough to be profitable for meat. There are plans to more ethically destroy the eggs before the chicks are hatched, using "in-ovo" sex determination.


title: Poultry farming

text: Chickens are often stunned before slaughter using carbon dioxide or electric shock in a water bath. More humane methods that could be used are low atmospheric pressure stunning and inert gas asphyxiation.


title: Poultry farming

text: Laying hens are routinely beak-trimmed at 1 day of age to reduce the damaging effects of aggression, feather pecking and cannibalism. Scientific studies have shown that beak trimming is likely to cause both acute and chronic pain. Severe beak trimming, or beak trimming birds at an older age, may cause chronic pain. Following beak trimming of older or adult hens, the nociceptors in the beak stump show abnormal patterns of neural discharge, indicating acute pain.


title: Poultry farming

text: Neuromas, tangled masses of swollen regenerating axon sprouts, are found in the healed stumps of birds beak trimmed at 5 weeks of age or older and in severely beak trimmed birds. Neuromas have been associated with phantom pain in human amputees and have therefore been linked to chronic pain in beak trimmed birds. If beak trimming is severe because of improper procedure or done in older birds, the neuromas will persist which suggests that beak trimmed older birds experience chronic pain, although this has been debated.


title: Poultry farming

text: Beak-trimmed chicks initially peck less than non-trimmed chickens, which animal behavioralist Temple Grandin attributes to guarding against pain. The animal rights activist, Peter Singer, claims this procedure is bad because beaks are sensitive, and the usual practice of trimming them without anaesthesia is considered inhumane by some. Some within the chicken industry claim that beak-trimming is not painful whereas others argue that the procedure causes chronic pain and discomfort, and decreases the ability to eat or drink.


title: Poultry farming

text: Antibiotics have been used in poultry farming in mass quantities since 1951, when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved their use. Scientists had found that chickens fed an antibiotic residue grew 50 percent faster than controls. The chickens laid more eggs and experienced lower mortality and less illness. Upon this discovery, farmers transitioned from expensive animal proteins to comparatively inexpensive antibiotics and B12. Chickens were now reaching their market weight at a much faster rate and at a lower cost. With a growing population and greater demand on the farmers, antibiotics appeared to be an ideal and cost-effective way to increase the output of poultry. Since this discovery, antibiotics have been routinely used in poultry production, but more recently have been the topic of debate secondary to the fear of bacterial antibiotic resistance.


title: Poultry farming

text: Poultry feed can include roxarsone or nitarsone, arsenical antimicrobial drugs that also promote growth. Roxarsone was used as a broiler starter by about 70% of the broiler growers between 1995 and 2000. The drugs have generated controversy because it contains arsenic, which is highly toxic to humans. This arsenic could be transmitted through run-off from the poultry yards. A 2004 study by the U.S. magazine Consumer Reports reported "no detectable arsenic in our samples of muscle" but found "A few of our chicken-liver samples has an amount that according to EPA standards could cause neurological problems in a child who ate 2 ounces of cooked liver per week or in an adult who ate 5.5 ounces per week." The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), however, is the organization responsible for the regulation of foods in America, and all samples tested were "far less than the... amount allowed in a food product."


title: Poultry farming

text: Hormone use in poultry production is illegal in the United States. Similarly, no chicken meat for sale in Australia is fed hormones. Several scientific studies have documented the fact that chickens grow rapidly because they are bred to do so, not because of growth hormones.


title: Poultry farming

text: According to Consumer Reports, "1.1 million or more Americans [are] sickened each year by undercooked, tainted chicken." A USDA study discovered "E. coli (Biotype I)" in 99% of supermarket chicken, the result of chicken butchering not being a sterile process. However, the same study also shows that the strain of "E. coli" found was always a non-lethal form, and no chicken had any of the pathenogenic O157:H7 serotype. Many of these chickens, furthermore, had relatively low levels of contamination.


title: Poultry farming

text: Feces tend to leak from the carcass until the evisceration stage, and the evisceration stage itself gives an opportunity for the interior of the carcass to receive intestinal bacteria. (The skin of the carcass does as well, but the skin presents a better barrier to bacteria and reaches higher temperatures during cooking.) Before 1950, this was contained largely by not eviscerating the carcass at the time of butchering, deferring this until the time of retail sale or in the home. This gave the intestinal bacteria less opportunity to colonize the edible meat. The development of the "ready-to-cook broiler" in the 1950s added convenience while introducing risk, under the assumption that end-to-end refrigeration and thorough cooking would provide adequate protection. "E. coli" can be killed by proper cooking times, but there is still some risk associated with it, and its near-ubiquity in commercially farmed chicken is troubling to some. Irradiation has been proposed as a means of sterilizing chicken meat after butchering.


title: Poultry farming

text: The aerobic bacteria found in poultry housing can include not only "E. coli", but "Staphylococcus", "Pseudomona", "Micrococcus" and others as well. These contaminants can contribute to dust that often causes issues with the respiratory systems of both the poultry and humans working in the environment. If bacterial levels in the poultry drinking water reach high levels, it can result in bacterial diarrhoea which can lead to blood poisoning should the bacteria spread from the damaged intestines.


title: Poultry farming

text: "Salmonella" too can be stressful on poultry production. How it causes disease has been investigated in some detail.


title: Poultry farming

text: There is also a risk that crowded conditions in chicken farms will allow avian influenza (bird flu) to spread quickly. A United Nations press release states: "Governments, local authorities and international agencies need to take a greatly increased role in combating the role of factory-farming, commerce in live poultry, and wildlife markets which provide ideal conditions for the virus to spread and mutate into a more dangerous form..."


title: Poultry farming

text: Several dermatitis conditions are significant in chickens especially gangrenous dermatitis. GD is caused by "Clostridium septicum", "Clostridium perfringens" type A, "Clostridium sordellii", "Clostridium novyi", "Staphylococcus aureus", "Staphylococcus xylosus", "Staphylococcus epidermidis", "Escherichia coli", "Pasteurella multocida", "Pseudomonas aeruginosa", "Enterococcus faecalis", "Proteus" spp., "Bacillus" spp., "Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae", and "Gallibacterium anatis" var. "haemolytica". Beemer et al. 1970 finds "Rhodotorula mucilaginosa" to cause a dermatitis in chickens easily confused with GD.


title: Poultry farming

text: Farming of chickens on an industrial scale relies largely on high protein feeds derived from soybeans; in the European Union the soybean dominates the protein supply for animal feed, and the poultry industry is the largest consumer of such feed. Two kilograms of grain must be fed to poultry to produce 1 kg of weight gain, much less than that required for pork or beef. However, for every gram of protein consumed, chickens yield only 0.33 g of edible protein.


title: Poultry farming

text: Changes in commodity prices for poultry feed have a direct effect on the cost of doing business in the poultry industry. For instance, a significant rise in the price of corn in the United States can put significant economic pressure on large industrial chicken farming operations.


title: Poultry farming

text: Poultry production requires regular control of excrement, and in many parts of the world, production operations, especially larger operations, need to comply with environmental regulations and protections. Different from mammalian excrement, in poultry (and all birds) urine and feces are excreted as a combined manure, and the result is both wetter and higher in concentrated nitrogen.


title: Poultry farming

text: Waste can be managed wet, dry or by some combination. Wet management is particularly used in battery egg laying operations, where the waste is sluiced out with constantly or occasionally flowing water. Water is also used to clean the floors around nesting sites that are separate from open runs. Dry management particularly refers to dry litter such as sawdust that is removed as needed. Dry can also include open pasture where manure is absorbed by the existing soil and vegetation, but needs to be monitored dillegently so as to not overwhelm the ground capacity and lead to runoff and other pollution problems.


title: Poultry farming

text: Both liquid sluicings and dry litter are used as organic fertilizers, but the wet bulk of liquids manure is harder to ship and is often limited to more local use, while the latter is easier to distribute in bulk and in commercial packaging.


title: Poultry farming

text: Mortality is a daily consideration for poultry farmers, and the carcasses must be disposed of in order to limit the spread of disease and the prevalence of pests. There are a variety of methods of disposal, the most common being burial, composting, incineration, and rendering. Environmental concerns surrounding each of these methods deal with nutrient pollution into the surrounding soil and groundwater – because of these concerns, in many countries and US states the practice of burial in pits is heavily regulated or disallowed. Farmers may construct their own facilities for composting, or purchase equipment to begin incineration or storage for rendering.


title: Poultry farming

text: Composting offers a safe and practical use for the organic material, while proper management of a composting site limits odor and presence of pests. Incineration offers a swifter disposal method, but uses fuel energy and thus brings varying costs. Rendering has the advantage of being handled off site, and the use of freezers can eliminate the spread of pathogens in storage awaiting pickup. Government organizations, like the USDA, may offer financial assistance to farmers looking to begin utilizing environmentally friendly mortality solutions.


title: Poultry farming

text: Poultry workers experience substantially higher rates of illness and injury than manufacturing workers do on average.


title: Poultry farming

text: For the year 2013, there were an estimated 1.59 cases of occupation-related illness per 100 full-time U.S. meat and poultry workers, compared to .36 for manufacturing workers overall. Injuries are associated with repetitive movements, awkward postures, and cold temperatures. High rates of carpal tunnel syndrome and other muscular and skeletal disorders are reported. Disinfectant chemicals and infectious bacteria are causes of respiratory illnesses, allergic reactions, diarrhea, and skin infections.


title: Poultry farming

text: Poultry housing has been shown to have adverse effects on the respiratory health of workers, ranging from a cough to chronic bronchitis. Workers are exposed to concentrated airborne particulate matter (PM) and endotoxins (a harmful waste product of bacteria). In a conventional hen house a conveyor belt beneath the cages removes the manure. In a cage-free aviary system the manure coats the ground, resulting in the build-up of dust and bacteria over time. Eggs are often laid on the ground or under cages in the aviary housing, causing workers to come close to the floor and force dust and bacteria into the air, which they then inhale during egg collection.


title: Poultry farming

text: Oxfam America reports that huge industrialized poultry operations are under such pressure to maximize profits that workers are denied access to toilets.


title: Poultry farming

text: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimated that in 2002 there were nearly sixteen billion chickens in the world. In 2008, the top countries with the highest number of chickens in the world was led by China with the largest at approx 4.6 billion, followed by USA with approx over 2 billion and then followed by Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico. In 2019, China had over 5.14 billion chickens, a higher amount than any other country in the world, followed by Indonesia with approx 3.7 billion chickens. The countries with the next-highest amounts were USA, Brazil, Pakistan, Iran, India, Mexico, Russia and Myanmar respectively.


title: Poultry farming

text: In 1950, the average American consumed 20 pounds (9 kg) of chicken per year, but 92.2 pounds (41.9 kg) in 2017. Additionally, in 1980 most chickens were sold whole, but by 2000 almost 90 percent of chickens were sold after being butchered into parts.


title: Squatting

text: Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there were one billion slum residents and squatters globally. Squatting occurs worldwide and tends to occur when people who are poor and homeless find empty buildings or land to occupy for housing. It has a long history, broken down by country below.


title: Squatting

text: In developing countries and least developed countries, shanty towns often begin as squatted settlements. In African cities such as Lagos much of the population lives in slums. There are pavement dwellers in India and in Hong Kong as well as rooftop slums. Informal settlements in Latin America are known by names such as villa miseria (Argentina), pueblos jóvenes (Peru) and asentamientos irregulares (Guatemala, Uruguay). In Brazil, there are favelas in the major cities and land-based movements.


title: Squatting

text: In industrialized countries, there are often residential squats and also political squatting movements, which can be anarchist, autonomist or socialist in nature, for example in the self-managed social centres of Italy or squats in the United States. Oppositional movements from the 1960s and 1970s created freespaces in Denmark or squatting village in the Netherlands, and in England and Wales, there were estimated to be 50,000 squatters in the late 1970s. Each local situation determines the context: in Athens, Greece, there are refugee squats; Germany has social centres; in Spain there are many squats.


title: Squatting

text: The majority of squatting is residential in nature. As a phenomenon it tends to occur when a poor and homeless population makes use of derelict property or land through urban homesteading. According to a 2003 estimate by the United Nations in the UN-Habitat report, there were about one billion people in squatter settlements and slums. According to an academic, Kesia Reeve, "squatting is largely absent from policy and academic debate and is rarely conceptualised, as a problem, as a symptom, or as a social or housing movement."


title: Squatting

text: In many of the world's poorer countries, there are extensive slums or shanty towns, typically built on the edges of major cities and consisting almost entirely of self-constructed housing built without the landowner's permission. While these settlements may in time become upgraded, they often start off as squats with minimal basic infrastructure. Thus, there is no legal link to sewerage, electricity or water. Such settlements also exist in industrialized countries, such as for example Cañada Real on the outskirts of Madrid.


title: Squatting

text: Squatting can be related to political movements, such as anarchist, autonomist, or socialist. It can be a means to conserve buildings or a protest action. Squats can be used by local communities as free shops, cafés, venues, pirate radio stations or as multi-purpose autonomous social centres. Dutch sociologist Hans Pruijt separates types of squatters into five distinct categories:


title: Squatting

text: Adverse possession, sometimes described as squatter's rights, is a method of acquiring title to property through possession for a statutory period under certain conditions. Countries where this principle exists include England and the United States, based on common law.


title: Squatting

text: Anarchist author Colin Ward asserts: "Squatting is the oldest mode of tenure in the world, and we are all descended from squatters. This is as true of the Queen [of the United Kingdom] with her as it is of the 54 percent of householders in Britain who are owner-occupiers. They are all the ultimate recipients of stolen land, for to regard our planet as a commodity offends every conceivable principle of natural rights." Others have a different view; UK police official Sue Williams, for example, has stated that "Squatting is linked to anti-social behaviour and can cause a great deal of nuisance and distress to local residents. In some cases there may also be criminal activities involved." The public attitude toward squatting varies, depending on legal aspects, socioeconomic conditions, and the type of housing occupied by squatters. In particular, while squatting of municipal buildings may be treated leniently, squatting of private property can often lead to strongly negative reactions on the part of the general public and the authorities.


title: Squatting

text: In African countries such as Nigeria, informal settlements are created by migration from rural areas to urban areas. Reasons for squatting include the lack of low cost housing, unemployment and inability to access loans. In 1995, almost 70% of the population of the Nigerian capital Lagos were living in slums.


title: Squatting

text: The City of the Dead slum is a well-known squatter community in Cairo, Egypt. Between 1955 and 1975, the Cairo authorities built 39,000 public housing apartments but 2 million people moved there, mostly ending up in informal housing. In Alexandria, Egypt's second city, public housing was only 0.5% of the total housing stock, whereas informal housing was 68%.


title: Squatting

text: An estimated 3,500 people live in the Grande Hotel Beira in Mozambique. Informal settlements in Zambia, particularly around Lusaka, are known as kombonis. As of 2011, 64% of Zambians lived below the poverty line, whilst the United Nations predicted a 941% population increase by 2100.


title: Squatting

text: In Liberia, squatting is one of three ways to access land, the other being ownership by deed or customary ownership. West Point was founded in Monrovia in the 1950s and is estimated to house between 29,500 and 75,000 people. During the First Liberian Civil War 1989–1997 and the Second Liberian Civil War 1999–2003, many people in Liberia were displaced and some ended up squatting in Monrovia. The Ducor Hotel fell into disrepair and was squatted, before being evicted in 2007. Recently, over 9,000 Burkinabés were squatting on remote land and the Liberia Land Authority (LLA) has announced it will be titling all land in the country.


title: Squatting

text: In South Africa, squatters tend to live in informal settlements or squatter camps on the outskirts of the larger cities, often but not always near townships. In the mid-1990s, an estimated 7.7 million South Africans lived in informal settlements: a fifth of the country's population. The figure was estimated to be 15 million in 2004. In Cape Town and Durban, there have been sustained conflict between the city council and a shack dwellers' movement known as Abahlali baseMjondolo. The organisation has represented the squatters in land occupations such as the Macassar Village in 2009 and the Cape Town and Durban Marikana land occupations in 2013 (both named after the Marikana massacre). It also successfully challenged the KZN Slums Act, which sought to mandate the eviction of slums but was eventually declared unconstitutional.


title: Squatting

text: There have been a number of similar conflicts between shack dwellers, some linked with the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, and the city council in Cape Town. One of the most high-profile cases was the eviction of squatters in the N2 Gateway homes in the suburb of Delft, where over 20 residents were shot, including a three-year-old child. There have been numerous complaints about the legality of the government's actions. Many of the families then squatted on Symphony Way, a main road in the township of Delft, before being forced to move to a camp called Blikkiesdorp.


title: Squatting

text: Squatting in Sudan is defined as the "acquisition and construction of land, within the city boundaries for the purpose of housing in contradiction to Urban Planning and Land laws and building regulations." These informal settlements arose in Khartoum from the 1920s onwards, swelling in the 1960s. By the 1980s, the government was clearing settlements in Khartoum and regularizing them elsewhere. It was estimated that in 2015 that were 200,000 squatters in Khartoum, 180,000 in Nyala, 60,000 in Kassala, 70,000 in Port Sudan and 170,000 in Wad Madani.


title: Squatting

text: Land squats occurred in what would become Zimbabwe in the 1970s and were routinely evicted. Only Epworth persisted on account of its size (around 50,000 people). After Zimbabwe was created in 1980, peasant farmers and squatters disputed the distribution of land. Informal settlements have developed on the periphery of cities such as Chitungwiza and the capital Harare. In 2005, Operation Murambatsvina ("Operation Drive Out Filth") organised by President Robert Mugabe evicted an estimated 700,000 people and affected over two million people.


title: Squatting

text: Israeli settlements are communities of Israeli citizens living in the Palestinian territories. The international community considers the settlements in occupied territory to be illegal,


title: Squatting

text: In March 2018, Israeli settlers were evicted from a house they had illegally occupied in Hebron, a Palestinian city in the West Bank. The fifteen families had argued that they had bought the house, but the High Court of Justice ruled that they had to leave. The Israel Defense Forces declared the building a closed military zone and it was unclear if the Palestinian owners could regain possession. The settlers had already occupied the house and been evicted in 2012. In October 2018, Fatou Bensouda, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court stated that Israel's planned demolition of Bedouin village Khan al-Ahmar could constitute a war crime.


title: Squatting

text: Squatters in Malaysia live on both privately owned and government-owned land. Some squatters have lived on land owned by national electricity company Tenaga Nasional for over five decades.


title: Squatting

text: Squatters in Indonesia live on both privately owned and government-owned land. For example, the former in Surabaya has been squatted since 2000s after being used as a prison for over 100 years.


title: Squatting

text: In Thailand, although evictions have reduced their visibility or numbers in urban areas, many squatters still occupy land near railroad tracks, under overpasses, and waterways. Commercial squatting is common in Thailand, where businesses temporarily seize nearby public real estate (such as sidewalks, roadsides, beaches, etc.) and roll out their enterprise, and at closing time they fold it in and lock it up, thus avoiding the extra cost of having to rent more property. In the early 2000s, the government estimated that 37% of the population lived in low-income urban communities, over half of which were squatting public land or renting precariously. The National Housing Authority stated over 100,000 families were living under threat of immediate eviction.


title: Squatting

text: In China, informal settlements are known as urban villages. Squatter settlements occurred in Hong Kong in 1946, after its wartime occupation by Japan. After 700,000 people migrated from mainland China to Hong Kong between 1949 and 1950; the squatter population was estimated at 300,000, with people sleeping wherever they could find a space. A fire at Shek Kip Mei in December 1953 resulted in over 50,000 slum-dwellers being left homeless. Rooftop slums then developed, when people began to live illegally on the roofs of urban buildings. In addition, the Kowloon Walled City became an area for squatters, housing up to 50,000 people in Hong Kong.


title: Squatting

text: In Mumbai, there are an estimated 10 to 12 million inhabitants, and six million of them are squatters. The squatters live in a variety of ways. Some possess two- or three-story homes built out of brick and concrete which they have inhabited for years. Geeta Nagar is a squatter village based beside the Indian Navy compound at Colaba. Squatter Colony in Malad East has existed since 1962, and now, people living there pay a rent to the city council of 100 rupees a month. Dharavi is a community of one million squatters. The stores and factories situated there are mainly illegal and so are unregulated, but it is suggested that they do over $1 million in business every day.


title: Squatting

text: Other squatters are pavement dwellers, with very few possessions. Activists such as Jockin Arputham, Prema Gopalan and Sheela Patel are working for better living conditions for slum dwellers, through organisations such as Mahila Milan and Slum Dwellers International. In the 2016 Mathura clash, members of Azad Bharat Vidhik Vaicharik Kranti Satyagrahi (Free India Legal Ideas Revolutionary Protesters) who had been living in Mathura's largest public park Jawahar Bagh for two years were evicted in a large police operation. At least 24 squatters were killed.


title: Squatting

text: After World War II many people were left homeless in the Philippines and they built makeshift houses called "barong-barong" on abandoned private land. The first mass eviction on record in Manila was 1951 and the largest was in late 1963 and early 1964 when 90,000 people were displaced. By 1978, there were estimated to be two million squatters in Manila, occupying 415 different locations.


title: Squatting

text: In the early 1980s, the squatter population grew and the government of Ferdinand Marcos made attempts to relocate squatters to low-cost housing projects. The sites were not prepared well, and moved people far away from their employment and social networks. Projects included the former Smokey Mountain landfill at Tondo, Taguig (BLISS Housing Project), and Rodriguez, Rizal. Philippine law distinguishes between squatters who squat because of poverty and those who squat in hopes of getting a payment to leave the property. In 1982, Imelda Marcos referred to the latter group as "professional squatters [...] plain land-grabbers taking advantage of the compassionate society". Philippines-based media and journalists refer to squatters as "informal settlers". The Community Mortgage Program was set up in 1992, aiming to help low-income families transition from squatting to affordable housing. By 2001, around 106,000 families had found secure housing in over 800 separate communities.


title: Squatting

text: Gecekondu is a Turkish word meaning a house put up quickly without proper permissions, a squatter's house, and by extension, a shanty or shack. From the 1960s onwards, these settlements have provided a means of housing for poor workers and new migrants arriving in cities such as Ankara and Istanbul. From the 1980s onwards, property developers have upgraded many gecekondu areas.


title: Squatting

text: Shortly after the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Istanbul, Don Kişot (Don Quixote) was squatted in the Kadıköy district. It was stated to be the capital's first occupied and self-managed social centre; Caferağa Mahalle Evi (community centre Caferağa), also in Kadıköy, was squatted soon afterwards and evicted in December 2014. A place was occupied in Beşiktaş district of Istanbul on March 18, 2014, and named Berkin Elvan Student House, after a 15-year-old boy who was shot during the Gezi protests and later died. Atopya was squatted in Ankara in June 2014 by anarchists, who claimed it was the city's first political squat.


title: Squatting

text: The trajectory of squatting in central and eastern Europe is very different from that of western Europe because, until recently, countries were part of the Communist Bloc and squatting is generally not tolerated. The first public squat in Romania was Carol 53 in Bucharest, occupied in 2012 by artists. This was a controversial project because in running the project the artists evicted a Roma family which was already silently squatting there. In Moldova, homeless people live in state-run shelters or squatter camps. Squatters in Centro 73, Moldova's first squatted, self-managed social centre, attempted to prevent the historical building's demolition, but were quickly evicted and given another building for art events. The oldest squat in Poland, Rozbrat, was founded in 1994 through the occupation of a former paint factory in Poznań. There are also squats in Białystok, Gdańsk, Gliwice, Warsaw and Wrocław. In Slovenia, the capital Ljubljana has an occupied former military barracks called Metelkova and the recently evicted former bicycle factory called Rog. Croatia has social centres such as the former Karlo Rojc barracks in Pula and (AKC) Medika in Zagreb. In Serbia, however, the tradition is more for Roma people to occupy buildings or for shacks to be built as second homes. A large Roma informal settlement called Cardboard city was evicted in 2009.


title: Squatting

text: In 1980s Soviet Russia, there was a practice used by artists and musicians to acquire communal rooms and then expand into other rooms. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there were many collectively organised housing occupations by families and refugees. The groups would attempt to legalise in some cases and not in others. There were also art squats, for example, in Saint Petersburg, there were Pushkinskaya 10, Na Fontanke and Synovia doktora Pelia. In the early 1990s, the Government of Moscow prepared to renovate buildings, but then ran out of money, meaning that squatters occupied prime real estate. By 1996, 40 per cent of Tverskaya Street was rented illegally or squatted.


title: Squatting

text: Squatting in the Czech Republic began in its modern form when anarchist and punk activists inspired by squatting movements in Amsterdam and Berlin occupied derelict houses following the 1989 Velvet Revolution. Ladronka (1993–2000) became internationally famous as a hub for counter-cultural activities and anarchist organisation.


title: Squatting

text: Squat Milada was occupied in 1997 and evicted in 2009. Its longevity was in part due to the building not existing in the cadastre. Klinika was an occupied social centre between 2014 and 2019. These three social centres, all in Prague, were the city's three most important political squats.


title: Squatting

text: Starting from December 2012, Greek Police initiated extensive raids in a number of squats in Athens, arresting and charging with offences all illegal occupants (mostly anarchists). Squats including Villa Amalia were evicted. A march in support of the 92 arrestees drew between 3,000 and 8,000 people. After Villa Amalia, Villa Skaramanga and then Villa Lela Karagianni were evicted. Lela Karagianni had been squatted since 1998 and was later reoccupied. The name came from the street, named for a Greek World War II resistance leader of that name. From 2015 onwards Athens has seen refugee squats in response to the European migrant crisis which are anarchist and self-organised. In 2019, several squats in Exarcheia were evicted by the Greek state. Some of the migrants evicted set up a camp outside the Parliament at Syntagma Square.


title: Squatting

text: There was a large squatting movement in the newly formed state of Austria following the First World War. Famine was a significant problem for many people in Austria and the "Siedler" (settler) movement developed as these people tried to create shelter and a source of food for themselves. The Ernst Kirchweger Haus (EKH) in Vienna was squatted as a social centre in 1990 and legalised in 2008. In 2014, 1,500 riot police officers, a tank-like police vehicle, a police water cannon and helicopters were used to clear a building occupied by the group Pizzeria Anarchia in Vienna.


title: Squatting

text: In many West European countries, since the 1960s and 1970s, there are both squatted houses used as residences and self-managed social centres where people pursue social and cultural activities.


title: Squatting

text: In Belgium, the village of Doel was slowly occupied by squatters and used by street artists after becoming a ghost village when the plans to expand Port of Antwerp stalled. Christiania in Copenhagen, Denmark, is an independent community of almost 900 people founded in 1971 on the site of an abandoned military zone. In Copenhagen, as in other European cities such as Berlin and Amsterdam, the squatter movement was large in the 1980s. It was a social movement, providing housing and alternative culture. A flashpoint came in 1986 with the Battle of Ryesgade. Another flashpoint came in 2007 when Ungdomshuset was evicted. While not technically a squat until 14 December 2006, it was a social centre used by squatters and people involved in alternative culture more generally. After a year of protests, the city council donated a new building.


title: Squatting

text: In early twentieth century France, several artists who would later become world-famous, such as Guillaume Apollinaire, Amedeo Modigliani and Pablo Picasso squatted at the Bateau-Lavoir, in Montmartre, Paris. Paris moved to legitimize some popular artist squats in the mid-2000s by purchasing and renovating the buildings for artist–residents. An example is Les Frigos. In the 2010s there have been several land squats protesting against large infrastructure projects. These are known collectively as Zone to Defend or ZAD (French: zone à défendre). The first and largest was the ZAD de Notre-Dame-des-Landes, which successfully opposed an airport project near Nantes.


title: Squatting

text: Geneva in Switzerland had 160 buildings illegally occupied and more than 2,000 squatters, in the middle of the 1990s. The RHINO ("Retour des Habitants dans les Immeubles Non-Occupés", in English: "Return of Inhabitants to Non-Occupied Buildings") was a 19-year-long squat in Geneva. It occupied two buildings on the Boulevard des Philosophes, a few blocks away from the main campus of the University of Geneva. The RHINO organisation often faced legal troubles, and Geneva police evicted the inhabitants on July 23, 2007. There were large riots in Zürich when the Binz occupation was evicted in 2013. The squatters moved to another building.


title: Squatting

text: During the public opposition in the 1970s, squatting in West German cities led to what termed "a self-confident urban counterculture with its own infrastructure of newspapers, self-managed collectives and housing cooperatives, feminist groups, and so on, which was prepared to intervene in local and broader politics". The Autonomen movement protected squats against eviction and participated in radical direct action in cities such as Berlin. The squats were mainly for residential and social use. Squatting became known by the term "instandbesetzen", from "instandsetzen" ("renovating") and "besetzen" ("occupying"). Well-known contemporary squats include Køpi in Berlin and Rote Flora in Hamburg. Legalised housing projects include Hafenstraße in Hamburg and Kiefernstraße in Düsseldorf. The Mietshäuser Syndikat was founded in 1992 by people who had been squatting in Freiburg im Breisgau in the 1980's to provide a way of transforming private property into collective ownership, including squats.


title: Squatting

text: Squatting is also used as a tactic for campaigning purposes, such as the Anatopia project, which protested against a Mercedes-Benz test track. Squatters moved into the former factory site of J.A. Topf & Söhne in Erfurt in April 2001 and remained there until they were evicted by police in April 2009. The firm made crematoria for Nazi concentration camps. The squatters ran culture programs which drew attention to the history of the company. The occupation was known simply as "Das Besetzte Haus" (the occupied house) and was one of the most well known actions of left-radicals of that period in Germany. A book about the occupation was published in 2012, entitled "Topf & Söhne – Besetzung auf einem Täterort" ("Topf & Söhne – Occupation of a crime scene"). Since 2012, Hambach Forest has been occupied by activists seeking to prevent its destruction by the energy company RWE.


title: Squatting

text: In Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland, there is a small tradition of squatting. In 1919, anarchists occupied a building and were quickly evicted. Squatters occupied an empty house in downtown Reykjavík on Vatnsstigur street in April 2009. The squatters set up a freeshop and had plans for a social centre, but the occupation was quickly evicted by the police and 22 people were arrested. Vatnsstigur 4 was briefly resquatted on May 7, 2009, in solidarity with the Rozbrat squat in Poland, which was threatened with eviction. Also in 2009, a group of graffiti artists called the Pretty Boys occupied Hverfisgata 34. Their intention was to make a clandestine gallery and then when they were not evicted, they legalised the space and called it Gallery Bosnia.


title: Squatting

text: When the Reykjavíkur Akademían (the Reykjavík Academy) was evicted at short notice from Hringbraut 121 in November 2011, it was occupied in protest. The space, which had hosted lectures and also Iceland's trade union and anarchist libraries, was moved to another location but the occupiers were unhappy that the new use of the building would be a guest house for tourists. An art exhibition was organised, with a camera obscura, live music and shadow theatre.


title: Squatting

text: The Dublin Housing Action Committee (DHAC) was active between 1968 and 1971, occupying buildings to protest the housing crisis. The Prohibition of Forcible Entry and Occupation Act of 1971 criminalized squatting. Squatters can gain title to land and property by adverse possession as governed by the 1957 Statute of Limitations Act. From the 1990s onwards, there have been occasional political squats such as Disco Disco, Magpie and Grangegorman.


title: Squatting

text: In Italy, despite the lack of official data, it appears that about 50,000 buildings all over the country are unused or abandoned and thus subject to squatting. Squatting has no legal basis, but many squats are used as social centres. The first occupations of abandoned buildings began in 1968 with the left-wing movements Lotta Continua and Potere Operaio. Out of the breakup of these two movements was born Autonomia Operaia, which was composed of a Marxist–Leninist and Maoist wing and also an anarchist and more libertarian one. These squats had Marxist-Leninist (but also Stalinist and Maoist) ideals and came from the left wing of Autonomia. The militants of the Italian armed struggle (the New Red Brigades) were connected to these squats. There are many left-wing self-organised occupied projects across Italy such as Cascina Torchiera and Centro Sociale Leoncavallo in Milan and Forte Prenestino in Rome. In Rome there is also a far-right social centre, Casa Pound.


title: Squatting

text: This situation has so far received the approval of Italian courts, which have been reluctant to defend the owners' rights. In contrast with the dominant jurisprudence, new case-law (from the Rome Tribunal and the Supreme Court of Cassation) instructs the government to pay damages in case of squatting if the institutions have failed to prevent it.


title: Squatting

text: The Dutch use the term "krakers" to refer to people who squat houses with the aim of living in them (as opposed to people who break into buildings for the purpose of vandalism or theft). Notable squats in cities around the country include ACU and Moira in Utrecht, the Poortgebouw in Rotterdam, OCCII, OT301 and Vrankrijk in Amsterdam, the Grote Broek in Nijmegen, Vrijplaats Koppenhinksteeg in Leiden, De Vloek in The Hague and the Landbouwbelang in Maastricht. Land squats include Ruigoord and Fort Pannerden.


title: Squatting

text: On 1 June 2010, squatting in the Netherlands became illegal and punishable when a decree was sent out that the squatting ban would be enforced from 1 October. Following legal challenges, on October 28, 2011, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands decided that the eviction of a squat can only occur after an intervention of a judge. The Dutch government assessed the effectiveness of the new law in 2015, releasing a report giving statistics on arrests and convictions between October 2010 and December 2014. During this time period, 529 people have been arrested for the act of occupying derelict buildings in 213 separate incidents. Of the 529 arrests, 210 were found guilty. Of those convicted, 39 people were imprisoned for the new offence.


title: Squatting

text: In Francoist Spain migrant workers lived in slums on the periphery of cities. After the Spanish transition to democracy, residential squatting occurred in Spanish cities such as Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Valencia and Zaragoza.


title: Squatting

text: The number of squatted social centres in Barcelona grew from under thirty in the 1990s to around sixty in 2014, as recorded by "Info Usurpa" (a weekly activist agenda). The influential Kasa de la Muntanya was occupied in 1989. In 2014, the ultimately unsuccessful attempts to evict the long-running social centre of Can Vies provoked major riots. Another long-running squat is Can Masdeu, which survived a concerted eviction attempt in 2002. Eleven occupiers suspended themselves off the walls of the building for several days.


title: Squatting

text: Younger squatters set up self-managed social centres which hosted events and campaigns. The 1995 Criminal Code among other things criminalised squatting, but failed to stop it. Social centres exist in cities across the country, for example Can Masdeu and Can Vies in Barcelona and Eskalera Karakola and La Ingobernable in Madrid. In the Basque Country the centres are known as . A well-known example was Kukutza in Bilbao.


title: Squatting

text: Squatting has a long history in England. The occupation and cultivation of untended land motivated the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and the Diggers in the 17th century. In the 20th century, squatters turned to abandoned buildings. Mass squats were organised in a number of prominent public buildings in central London, culminating in the occupation of 144 Piccadilly in 1969. The London Street Commune or "Hippydilly" garnered worldwide attention. There were estimated to be 50,000 squatters throughout Britain in the late 1970s, with the majority (30,000) living in London. The BBC reported in 2011 that the government estimated that there were "20,000 squatters in the UK" and "650,000 empty properties". On 1 September 2012, under Section 144 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, squatting in residential property was criminalised by the Cameron–Clegg coalition, punishable by up to six months in prison or a £5000 fine, or both. The same year saw the first successful prosecution for squatting, resulting in a 12-week jail sentence. Section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 provides police with additional power to remove trespassers when there is damage to land or property, trespassers are abusive, insulting or threatening or there are over six vehicles on premises related to squatters.


title: Squatting

text: In the late 1960s, people in Northern Ireland were forced to squat through both poverty and a lack of decent housing. In County Tyrone, there were allegations of unfair housing provision on the basis of politics and religion. When a house in the village of Caledon, near Dungannon, was allocated to a young Protestant woman, Emily Beattie, it caused protests. She was secretary to a solicitor who worked for the Unionist councillor who had given her the house and two Catholic families who had been overlooked complained that the same councillor had scotched plans to build houses for Catholics in the Dungannon area. Several days after the woman had moved in, the Catholic squatters in the house next door were evicted. Austin Currie, then a young politician, complained both at the local council and at Stormont about the situation. He then symbolically occupied the woman's house for a few hours, before being evicted by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). One of the policeman was the woman's brother who himself moved into the house later on. The incident quickly became a media sensation and in August the civil rights movement arranged one of its first marches, from Coalisland to Dungannon. This was followed in October by a civil rights march in Derry which was organised by the Derry Housing Action Committee and the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. The march was brutally repressed by the RUC.


title: Squatting

text: In 2012, activists from Occupy Belfast squatted a Bank of Ireland building in Belfast city centre and used it as a social space. Squatting in Northern Ireland was unaffected by the recent law change in England and Wales, and remains a civil matter.


title: Squatting

text: Squatting is a criminal offence in Scotland, punishable by a fine or even imprisonment, under the Trespass (Scotland) Act 1865. The owner or lawful occupier of the property has the right to evict squatters without notice or applying to the court for an eviction order, although when evicting, they cannot do anything that would break the law, for example, use violence.


title: Squatting

text: Nevertheless, the 19th and early 20th centuries saw various land raids in which cottars attempted to occupy land for subsistence farming. In 1948, the Seven Men of Knoydart unsuccessfully squatted land owned by the Nazi-supporting Lord Brocket. There have been several road protest land squats such as Bilston Glen and Pollok Free State. The former premises of the Forest Café in Edinburgh were squatted in 2011 and activists occupied a former shelter in Glasgow in 2021, during COP26.


title: Squatting

text: In 2010, a representative of the UK Bailiff Company claimed that the number of people squatting in Wales was at its highest for 40 years. The high number of businesses failing in urban Wales has led to squatting becoming a growing issue in large cities like Swansea and Cardiff. Experts said "the majority [of squatters] are forced into the lifestyle by financial pressures." Based on the internal database of UK Bailiff Company, there were 100 cases of squatting in 2009, the highest for 40 years, following trends estimated by the Advisory Service for Squatters that squatting has doubled in England and Wales since 1995.


title: Squatting

text: As with England, from 1 September 2012, squatting in a residential building was made a criminal offence subject to arrest, fine and imprisonment. Cardiff Squatters Network was formed in December 2012, to network together squatters citywide, and host "skill-share" workshops on squatting legally in commercial buildings.


title: Squatting

text: In Canada, there are two systems to register the ownership of land. Under the land title system, squatter rights, formally known as adverse possession, were abolished. However, under the registry system, these rights have been preserved. If a person occupies land for the required period of time as set out in provincial limitation acts and during that time no legal action is taken to evict them, then the ownership of the land transfers from the legal owner to the squatter.


title: Squatting

text: The Frances Street Squats in Vancouver were a row of six buildings squatted for nine months in 1990. They were evicted in a large operation and a film was subsequently made, called "The Beat of Frances Street". In recent years, there have been a number of public squats which have brought together the two main contemporary reasons for squatting – homelessness and activism. Examples are the Lafontaine squat in Overdale, a district of Montréal (2001), the Woodward's Squat in Vancouver (2002), the Infirmary Squat in Halifax (2002), the Pope Squat in Toronto (2002), the Seven Year Squat in Ottawa (2002), the Water Street Squat in Peterborough (2003), and the North Star hotel in Vancouver (2006). These were squats organised by anti-poverty groups which tended to be short-lived. The Woodward's building was a derelict department store which had stood empty for nine years. After being evicted from the building, two hundred squatters set up a tent city on the pavement outside. The action is credited with putting in motion the eventual redevelopment of the building. The Peterborough Coalition Against Poverty (PCAP) publicly squatted 1130 Water Street, a building which stood empty after a fire. The group offered to repair the place and return it to its use as low-income housing. City officials agreed to the repairs and then City Council voted to demolish the building. The cost of demolition was $8,900 and the cost of repairs had been projected to be $6,900. The North Star hotel was temporarily squatted as a protest against emptiness by the Vancouver Anti-Poverty Committee.


title: Squatting

text: In 2011, the 'Occupy Toronto squat team' squatted a basement at 238 Queen Street West and offered to take on a lease for 99 cents per year. They were evicted after eight hours.


title: Squatting

text: In the history of the United States, squatting occurred during the California Gold Rush and World War II. Hoovervilles were homeless camps built across the country during the Great Depression in the 1930s. They were named after Herbert Hoover, who was president of the country at the time. As of 2008, shanty towns again sprang up across the US. During the Great Recession (2007–2009) there were increasing numbers of people squatting foreclosed homes. There were also reports of people resquatting their own foreclosed homes.


title: Squatting

text: Community organizations have helped the homeless to take over vacant buildings not only as a place to live but also a part of larger campaign to shine a light on inequity in housing and advocate change in housing and land issues. In 2002, the New York City administration agreed to work with eleven squatted buildings on the Lower East Side in a deal brokered by the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board with the condition the apartments would eventually be turned over to the tenants as low-income housing cooperatives.


title: Squatting

text: In Latin American and Caribbean countries, informal settlements result from internal migration to urban areas, lack of affordable housing and ineffective governance. During the 1950s and 1960s, many Latin American cities demolished squatter settlements and would quickly evict land invasions. In Chile, the government of Eduardo Frei Montalva (1964–1970) began to permit shanty towns and the government of Salvador Allende (1970–1973) encouraged them, but under the military junta from 1973 onwards squatters were again quickly evicted. Likewise in Argentina, under the military dictatorship there was a zero tolerance policy. Nevertheless, forced by hunger and unemployment to take action, 20,000 squatters occupied 211 hectares of disused privately owned land on the periphery of Buenos Aires in 1981, forming six new settlements. They collectively resisted the eviction attempts and by 1984 had outlasted the dictatorship. The election of a democratic government led to the local councils becoming more open to negotiation.


title: Squatting

text: More recently governments have switched from a policy of eradication to one of giving squatters title to their lands, as part of various programs to move people out of slums and to alleviate poverty. Inspired by the World Bank and the thinking of economists such as Hernando de Soto, the programs aim to provide better housing and to promote entrepreneurship, for the former squatters can use their houses as collateral to secure business loans. Former squatters found that it was hard to maintain the property title over time after deaths or divorces and that banks changed their loan requirements so as to exclude them.


title: Squatting

text: In Peru, the name given to the squatter zones is pueblos jóvenes (literally "young towns"). In the 1980s, there were more than 300 pueblos jóvenes surrounding the capital Lima, housing over one million people. In Argentina they are known as villa miseria (literally "misery settlement"), and as asentamiento in Uruguay and Guatemala.


title: Squatting

text: The population of Ecuador's capital Quito grew sevenfold between 1950 and 2001. There are three types of slums in the city, namely barrios periféricos (shanty towns on the edge of the city), conventillos (dilapidated tenements in the urban centre) and rural shanty towns from where inhabitants commute to work in the city. An estimated 170,000 people were living in slums in 1992. In Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city and main port, around 600,000 people in the early 1980s were either squatting on self-built structures over swamplands or living in inner-city slums. Illegal settlements frequently resulted from land invasions, in which large groups of squatters would build structures and hope to prevent eviction through strength in numbers.


title: Squatting

text: From the beginning of the 19th century, there was internal migration from rural areas to cities such as Cochabamba. By 1951, the migrants had begun to seize land and build informal settlements. The land invasions continued despite the authorities often evicting them and from 1945 until 1976, 10 per cent of development in Cochabamba was illegal. From the 1970s the government has attempted to regularize the squatter settlements and the programs have largely failed due to corruption. A fresh initiative set up in 2002 did not prevent new settlements being squatted. In the 1990s, La Paz had 48 unauthorised graveyards where the poor buried their dead. The land was squatted and there was no record of how many people were buried in the cemeteries. There are also squatters in the forest lowlands who are illegal loggers. Indigenous peoples occupied a gold mine at Tacacoma in 2015 which they said was on their ancestral land. When 200 police officers attempted to evict them, four were taken hostage and one died.


title: Squatting

text: In Brazil, informal settlements are called favelas; a famous example is Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro, home to up to 180,000 people. Favelas are mostly inhabited by the poorest strata of society, and usually lack much infrastructure and public services, but in some cases, already have reached the structure needed for a city. As of 2004, across Brazil there were 25 million people living in favelas. After failed attempts in the 1960s and 1970s to bulldoze slums out of existence, the authorities moved towards a policy of toleration. In São Paulo, until 1972 favelas were usually demolished; after that time they were permitted, meaning that in the next decade the number of squatters rose to one million. The largest favela is Heliópolis, with over 200,000 inhabitants as of 2018. It has been officially recognized as a regular neighborhood of the city. There are also a number of squatter buildings in the inner city, the most famous of which was a 22-storey building called Prestes Maia, whose inhabitants were ordered to leave in 2006. Various occupations in buildings and unoccupied areas in big cities, led by groups such as the Homeless Workers' Movement (MTST) or Downtown Roofless Movement (MSTC), have occurred. There are also rural squatter movements in Brazil, such as the Landless Workers' Movement (MST), which organise land occupations. For example, in Pontal do Paraná in the state of Paraná 112 occupations were carried out, housing 6,500 families.


title: Squatting

text: The Colombian Constitution of 1991 states that housing is a universal human right. In 2010, Colombia was the country with the second most internally displaced people in the world, at an estimated 4 million. This was the result of an extended civil conflict between rebels, paramilitaries, cocaine traders and the state, which left 40% of rural land without legal title. In the capital Bogotá, squatting has traditionally not been the main technique for land acquisition; people tend to purchase land legally and then subdivide or develop it illegally, creating "pirate neighbourhoods". In 1970, 45.9% of Bogotá's population lived in these pirate neighbourhoods, as compared to 1.1% who were squatting.


title: Squatting

text: Following the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), squatters acquired smallholdings across the country. Cité Soleil was founded in 1958 to house workers, then grew rapidly to 80,000 people in the 1980s and 400,000 people in the 1990s. It became the largest slum in Haiti, housing people displaced from other areas. There is little infrastructure and the area frequently becomes flooded. Following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, 1.5 million people were displaced. One year later, 100,000 squatters had left the aid camps and were occupying land next to an official camp called Corail.


title: Squatting

text: In Nicaragua, squatting occurred after 1972 Nicaragua earthquake. Squatters in Nicaragua were dominated by earthquake victims.


title: Squatting

text: In the 19th century, the British government claimed to own all of Australia and tried to control land ownership. Wealthy farmers of livestock claimed land for themselves and thus were known as squatters. This type of squatting is covered in greater detail at Squatting (Australian history). During the late 1940s the squatting of hundreds of empty houses and military camps, forced federal and state governments to provide emergency shelter during a period when Australians faced a shortage of more than 300 000 homes.In more recent times, Australia has seen occupations in Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney. The Aboriginal Tent Embassy was set up in 1972 and is a permanent protest occupation. The 2016 Bendigo Street housing dispute saw squatters successfully contesting road-building plans. The Midnight Star squat was used as a self-managed social centre in a former cinema, before being evicted after being used as a convergence space during the 2002 World Trade Organization meeting.


title: Squatting

text: On Rarotonga, the largest island in Cook Islands, three informal settlements are inhabited by people from Manihiki, Penrhyn and Pukapuka. The 3,000 dwellers are known as squatters although they have permission to live on the customary land.


title: Squatting

text: East Timor became an independent country in 2002, after previously being occupied by first Portugal and then Indonesia. Following the conflict involved in becoming independent, East Timor had no land registry and no process for squatters to be evicted. This created problems as people displaced by war returned to their homes to find them occupied by squatters, who in some cases had rented them out and wanted a monetary settlement before leaving. Land claims can be broken into four groups, namely those who currently possess land, those claiming land they owned under Portuguese rule, those claiming land they possessed under Indonesian rule and people asserting customary or traditional land rights. In 2006, conflict again broke out and 100,000 people were displaced; as had happened previously, when residents returned to their homes they found them squatted.


title: Squatting

text: Informal settlements in Kiribati are known as squatter settlements, as in Fiji and Samoa. Unlike most Pacific Island countries, it is possible to sell or buy customary land in Kiribati. Zoning laws are not implemented by the government and not widely recognised by local people. On the island of Kiritimati, squatters live in both villages and on old Burns Philp copra plantations.


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: Nicholas Hammond (born May 15, 1950) is an American-born Australian actor and writer who is best known for his roles as Friedrich von Trapp in the film "The Sound of Music" and as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the 1970s television series "The Amazing Spider-Man." He also appeared in the theatrical films as "Spider-Man" and its two outside of North America.


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: Hammond was born on May 15, 1950 in Washington, D.C., the son of Colonel Thomas West Hammond, Jr. by his wife Eileen Hammond (née Bennett). While Hammond's father was a U.S. citizen and an officer in the U.S. Army, his mother was English and had played a role in "Much Too Shy" in 1942. Hammond has one elder brother, David (b. 1946). Hammond's parents had met and married in London during World War II when his father had been posted there. After the war, the couple moved to the U.S. permanently, and because the Colonel had an army job, the family moved numerous times to various army stations across the country during Hammond's childhood. Col. Hammond died in 1970.


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: Hammond was 11 years old when he made his acting debut in the Broadway play "The Complaisant Lover" in 1961. At the same time, he began to shoot for the 1963 film "Lord of the Flies," which marked his film debut. After this, Hammond played what was to be his most notable screen role: Friedrich von Trapp (the elder of the two boys) in the 1965 hit "The Sound of Music".


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: Hammond's next acting role came in 1970, when he appeared in "Conduct Unbecoming," his first role as an adult. In 1972 Hammond appeared as Peter Linder in "Skyjacked". In 1973 he made a guest appearance on "The Brady Bunch" in season 4, episode #090, "The Subject Was Noses", as the high school hunk, Doug Simpson, who loses interest in Marcia after her tragic football accident. That year Hammond also appeared in "The Waltons" episode "The Townie", as Theodore Claypool Jr.


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: After making the transition from juvenile to young leading man, Hammond spent several seasons in daytime soaps such as "General Hospital". He also appeared on many television shows of the 1970s including "Hawaii Five-O".


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: In the late 1970s Hammond re-joined fellow "The Sound of Music" alumnus Heather Menzies (who played Louisa von Trapp) for one episode of the TV adaptation of "Logan's Run". He also contributed to "The Sound of Music Family Scrapbook".


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: From 1977 to 1979, Hammond played the role for which he is perhaps best known, as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the television series "The Amazing Spider-Man." Hammond described his approach to the character: "I liked the idea of taking a fantasy hero and making him believable as a person. I made it clear going into it that I wasn't interested in doing something that was just a camp joke."


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: The series aired sporadically on CBS, with 13 episodes airing over two seasons. A pilot movie appeared in the fall of 1977, with the series returning as a mid-season replacement for five episodes in the spring of 1978. While the show did well in the ratings, CBS was unwilling to commit to a regular timeslot due to its relatively weak showing in the lucrative adult demographic. The second season aired six episodes, each an hour long, in the fall of 1978 and winter of 1979, with a final two-hour episode in the summer of that year. Although Hammond played Peter Parker in the television series, in all of the scenes in which Spider-Man is seen performing stunts or without dialogue, a stunt double was filmed by a second camera unit.


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: After the "Spider-Man" series ended, Hammond guest-starred on a number TV shows of the early 1980s, including "The Love Boat", "Magnum, P.I.", "Murder, She Wrote", and he played recurring roles on "Falcon Crest" and "Dallas".


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: After being cast as yachtsman Dennis Conner in the 1986 Australian TV miniseries "The Challenge", about the 1983 America's Cup challenge, Hammond liked the country so much that he decided to stay. He later became an Australian citizen and has since then appeared in several television miniseries filmed in Australia.


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: Among these was an important role as an American WWII officer based in Far North Queensland, in the major miniseries "Fields of Fire", series I and II, set in the cane fields of tropical Australia. His character represented the gentler side of the culture clash between Australians and Americans. He had a starring role as Sir Ivor Creevy-Thorne in "Mirror, Mirror", an Australia/New Zealand extended miniseries (a complete story of 20 serialised episodes, with cliffhangers between each of the episodes). Hammond also guest-starred in various Australian television series, including satirical television programs such as "BackBerner" and "CNNNN", the science fiction program "Farscape", and dramatic series such as "The Flying Doctors", "MDA" and the Australian/USA co-production "" (which was filmed in Australia).


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: In 2005, Hammond portrayed television producer Aaron Spelling in "", a fictionalized television movie based on the creation and behind the scenes production of "Dynasty".


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: Hammond is a writer for Australian television, having written both the miniseries "A Difficult Woman" and the TV movie "Secret Men's Business". In 2009, he made his directing debut with "Lying Cheating Bastard", a play he co-wrote with magician James Galea.


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: In 2019, he portrayed director Sam Wanamaker in the Quentin Tarantino film "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood".


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: Hammond married Laura Soli in 1980, and the couple divorced in 1984. He moved to Australia in the mid-1980s and now lives in Sydney, with the Australian actress Robyn Nevin.


title: Nicholas Hammond

text: He has remained close friends with his "Sound of Music" siblings, several of whom joined a multitude of other actors and co-stars for the 'Save the Rose Theatre' campaign's street event, amid talent from many international productions.


title: Bruce Johnston

text: Bruce Arthur Johnston (born Benjamin Baldwin; June 27, 1942) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who is a member of the Beach Boys. Johnston also collaborated on many records with Terry Melcher (his bandmate in Bruce & Terry, the Rip Chords, and California Music) and composed the 1975 Barry Manilow hit, "I Write the Songs".


title: Bruce Johnston

text: Born in Illinois, Johnston grew up in Los Angeles and studied classical piano in his early years. While in high school, he arranged and played on his first hit record, Sandy Nelson's "Teen Beat" (1959), and also worked with musicians such as Kim Fowley and Phil Spector. One of Johnston's first gigs was as a member of the surf band the Gamblers before becoming a staff producer at Columbia Records.


title: Bruce Johnston

text: In 1965, Johnston joined the Beach Boys for live performances, initially filling in for the group's co-founder Brian Wilson. Johnston's first appearance on the band's records was as a vocalist on "California Girls" (1965). He later contributed original material to the group's albums, including "The Nearest Faraway Place" on "20/20" (1969), "Tears in the Morning" and "Deirdre" on "Sunflower" (1970), and "Disney Girls (1957)" on "Surf's Up" (1971).


title: Bruce Johnston

text: Johnston left the Beach Boys in 1972 and subsequently embarked on a solo career. During this time, Johnston recorded one solo album, "Going Public" (1977), his last to date. In late 1978, he rejoined the Beach Boys to co-produce the group's "L.A. (Light Album)" (1979). Since then, he has continued to tour as a member of the band.


title: Bruce Johnston

text: As a child, Johnston was adopted by William and Irene Johnston of Chicago and grew up on the West side of Los Angeles in Brentwood and Bel-Air. His adoptive family is of Irish descent, with his grandparents hailing from Markethill, County Armagh. His adoptive father was president of the Owl Rexall Drug Company in Los Angeles after moving from Walgreens in Chicago. Johnston attended the private Bel Air Town and Country School (later renamed John Thomas Dye School) and the University of California, Los Angeles. He also studied classical piano in his early years, training at Interlochen Arts Camp as a youth.


title: Bruce Johnston

text: In high school, Johnston switched to contemporary music. He performed in a few "beginning" bands during this time and then moved on to working with young musicians such as Sandy Nelson, Kim Fowley, and Phil Spector. Soon Johnston began backing people such as Ritchie Valens, the Everly Brothers, and Eddie Cochran. In 1959, while still in high school, Johnston arranged and played on his first hit record, "Teen Beat" by Sandy Nelson. The single reached the Billboard Top Ten. The same year, Johnston made his first single under his own name, "Take This Pearl" on Arwin Records (a record label owned by Doris Day) as part of the Bruce & Jerry duo (Jerry Cooper was a high school friend of Bruce's).


title: Bruce Johnston

text: In 1960, Johnston started his record production career at Del-Fi Records, producing five singles and an album – "Love You So" – by Ron Holden (many of the album's eleven tracks were written or co-written by Johnston). In 1962 and 1963, Johnston continued his recording career with a series of surfin' singles (vocal & instrumental) and an album, "Surfin' 'Round the World", credited to Bruce Johnston, and another "live" album, the Bruce Johnston Surfin' Band's "Surfer's Pajama Party". In 1963 came the first collaboration with his friend Terry Melcher (Doris Day's son), a mostly instrumental covers album credited to the Hot Doggers.


title: Bruce Johnston

text: The first artist that Johnston and Melcher produced was a group called the Rip Chords. The pair were then working as staff producers at Columbia Records, Hollywood, and by the time they were producing the million-selling "Hey Little Cobra", a knock-off of the Beach Boys car song vocal style, they also wound up singing every layered vocal part for the recording. The two of them made a few recordings as Bruce & Terry and the Rogues, but Melcher began to focus more on his production career (with the Byrds, Paul Revere & the Raiders).


title: Bruce Johnston

text: On April 9, 1965, Johnston joined the Beach Boys in New Orleans, replacing Glen Campbell, who briefly filled in as a touring member for Brian Wilson, and had declined an offer to officially join the band. Johnston did not start playing bass until his first tenure with the Beach Boys, and the first contributions Johnston made as one of the Beach Boys was on "Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)". For contractual reasons, however, he was not credited or photographed on a Beach Boys album cover until "Wild Honey" (1967).


title: Bruce Johnston

text: In May 1966, Johnston flew to London and played "Pet Sounds" (1966) for John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Keith Moon. Johnston provided backing vocals to six of the album's 13 tracks: "Wouldn't It Be Nice", "You Still Believe in Me", "That's Not Me", "God Only Knows" (also co-lead), "Sloop John B", and "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times". He similarly contributed backing vocals to some of the subsequent "Smile" sessions. In early 1967, Wilson discussed the extent of his personal relationship with Johnston to "Melody Maker": "I'm afraid I only know Bruce superficially. [...] I only see him at recording sessions. [...] He's a very likeable person."


title: Bruce Johnston

text: Johnston did not participate in most of the 1967 "Smiley Smile" sessions and played on only a few tracks on "Wild Honey". Reflecting on "Smiley Smile", Johnston said it was "a thousand times better than the [original "Smile"] [...] It's just the most underrated album in the whole catalog for me." He had an unfavorable opinion of the band's 1968 album "Friends", calling the songs "wimpy". The Beach Boys asked touring member Billy Hinsche to permanently replace Johnston in mid-1969, although Hinsche elected to focus on his studies at UCLA and Johnston was not aware of the offer at the time.


title: Bruce Johnston

text: Starting with the instrumental "The Nearest Faraway Place" from "20/20" (1969), Johnston's original compositions began appearing on the band's records. Johnston considered his favorite Beach Boys album to be "Sunflower" (1970). In a 1970s interview, he described it as the last true Beach Boys album because, in his belief, it was the last to feature Wilson's input and active involvement. He nonetheless regretted the inclusion of his two songs, saying that "Tears in the Morning" was "too pop" and that "I wish I hadn't recorded ['Deirdre'] with the group."


title: Bruce Johnston

text: "Surf's Up" (1971) included Johnston's most notable written composition for the band, "Disney Girls (1957)", which was subsequently recorded by, among others, Cass Elliot, Captain & Tennille, Art Garfunkel, Jack Jones, and Doris Day. From a performance standpoint, he later cited 1971 as his favorite year of the group musically because their set lists focused on newer songs. He also criticized "Surf's Up" as "a hyped-up lie." His final contribution before departing consisting of backing vocals on their 1972 song "Marcella".


title: Bruce Johnston

text: In 1972, Johnston was dismissed from the band. According to manager Jack Rieley, he fired Johnston at the request of the Wilson brothers. Brian told an interviewer, "All I know is he got into a horrible fight with Jack Rieley. Some dispute, and they got into a horrible fight, and the next day Bruce was gone." Dennis Wilson said, "There's less tension since Bruce left. [...] Musically, we didn't click [and] appreciate each other, so one day we both said, 'OK, that's it.' He's a good guy but he was writing stuff for a solo album. [...] We're a band." Mike Love stated, "It was very amicable. The Beach Boys never threw him out. He was just on a tangent that was outside The Beach Boys for so many years." Johnston himself said that he left the band partly due to his unhappiness with Brian's creative withdrawal from the group. Later, in 1974, he said that he departed because he "didn't want to go on singing oldies for the rest of my life" and was "too frustrated being [considered as] a fifth of something – what was what I was with the Beach Boys."


title: Bruce Johnston

text: Although he was no longer an official member of the band, Johnston continued to make occasional appearances on their albums from the mid-1970s. Concurrently, he embarked on a solo career. In 1977, he released his third solo album "Going Public", which included among its tracks Johnston's own recording of "I Write the Songs" as well as a disco remake of his 1970 Beach Boys song "Deirdre". Johnston would also score a hit off the album on the disco charts with a dance-oriented remake of the Chantays' hit "Pipeline" after the recording was popularized by Manhattan-based underground DJ David Mancuso.


title: Bruce Johnston

text: At the end of 1978, Johnston rejoined the Beach Boys at Brian Wilson's request to appear on (and co-produce) the album "L.A. (Light Album)". The following year he was credited as sole producer on the follow-up LP, "Keepin' the Summer Alive". Johnston has remained with the Beach Boys ever since and was the only member to continue touring with Mike Love as the Beach Boys after the death of Carl Wilson.


title: Bruce Johnston

text: Biographer Peter Ames Carlin approached Johnston during the writing of the 2006 book "Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson". However, Johnston was reluctant to be interviewed and only offered a few comments via e-mail. According to Carlin, Johnston remarked at one point, "I can tell that you are far deeper into the Beach Boys thing than I will ever be in 100 lifetimes! It's only "business" to me."


title: Bruce Johnston

text: Johnston still retains his equal ownership of the band's ASCAP publishing company, Wilojarston, and is the only member of the band to have earned a Grammy Award for Song of the Year. As of 2020, Johnston remains the longest-tenured active member of the Beach Boys after Love.


title: Bruce Johnston

text: In 1967, Johnston sang on "My World Fell Down", a minor hit for the Gary Usher-led studio group Sagittarius.


title: Bruce Johnston

text: In the mid-1970s, he wrote "I Write the Songs", which was originally recorded by Captain & Tennille. The song became a "Billboard" number one hit by Barry Manilow, for which Johnston won a Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1977. "I Write the Songs" would go on to be recorded by over two hundred artists, including Frank Sinatra, among others. Regarding the Grammy win, Johnston stated: "How did I win a Grammy for a song that I wrote in my car and Brian Wilson and Mike Love have not won a well-deserved songwriting Grammy? Why is fate being so unfair to two of my pop music songwriting heroes?".


title: Bruce Johnston

text: In 1977, Johnston provided vocal arrangements and sang back-up vocals on Eric Carmen's LP "Boats Against the Current" and can be heard on the hit single "She Did It", with inspiration taken from the 1968 Beach Boys' hit "Do It Again". Additionally, during this period Johnston wrote backing vocal arrangements and also sang on the recordings for Elton John including "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me". He also contributed vocals to several songs on Pink Floyd's album "The Wall", most notably in the song "The Show Must Go On", which Roger Waters specifically wrote for Beach Boys-style vocal harmonies.


title: Bruce Johnston

text: In 2021, a reconstituted line-up of California Music was formed by Johnston with members of the Beach Boys and their family. Omnivore Recordings released their first album, "California Music Presents Add Some Music", in April 2021.


title: Bruce Johnston

text: Bruce Johnston is one of the producers of The Weeknd's album "Dawn FM" (2022), in which he wrote and co-produced "Here We Go... Again" featuring rapper Tyler, the Creator.


title: Bruce Johnston

text: Johnston married Harriet Johnston in 1976 and has four sons: Ozzie, Justin, Ryan, and Max. He described himself as "a real conservative guy" and stated that he had never taken drugs other than alcohol in his life. Politically, he identified as a Republican as of 2012. He was subjected to criticism during the band's 50th anniversary tour, when a fan video during a meet and greet caught him being critical of then-US President Barack Obama, as well as 2012 Republican Presidential nominee, Mitt Romney.


title: Punjab Province (British India)

text: Punjab was a province of British India. Most of the Punjab region was annexed by the East India Company in 2 April 1849, and declared a province of British Rule, it was one of the last areas of the Indian subcontinent to fall under British control. In 1858, the Punjab, along with the rest of British India, came under the direct rule of the British Crown. It had an area of 358,354.5 km.