John Farrant, editor of Poultry World in the salmonella crisis and National Hunt jockey – obituary

John Farrant, who has died aged 85, was the long-serving editor of Poultry World who battled to save egg farmers from annihilation after Edwina Currie’s 1988 claim that “most of the egg production in this country, sadly, is now infected with salmonella”.

The monthly magazine had been covering the rise in Salmonella enteriditis food poisoning, and the 15 to 20 per cent drop in egg consumption, when on December 3 Edwina Currie, then a junior health minister, gave ITN the sensational line.

She resigned on December 16, having been castigated in the Commons for her “half baked, half boiled, irrational statement”. In the meantime, the panic had crashed egg sales by 60 per cent in the week after her interview, and pushed 5,000 commercial egg producers to the brink of bankruptcy. Four million laying hens – four per cent of the national flock – were gassed and 400 million eggs destroyed over the next four years.

In the January 1989 issue of Poultry World, Farrant tore apart the government’s confusion over the causes of salmonella: the Department of Health blamed it on hens’ oviducts, but the Ministry of Agriculture had failed to find any salmonella in the hundreds of eggs they had tested. “Eggs have become the Aunt Sally for so-called experts and publicity seekers to show off their lack of knowledge outside their little sphere,” Farrant argued.

For Poultry World’s coverage of the crisis, and the measures brought in to manage it, he was named Poultry Person of the Year at the 1989 Egg and Poultry Industry Conference (EPIC).

In 2001, however, a report by a Whitehall working group came to light that had been produced months after Edwina Currie’s resignation but not published at the time. The report found that there had been a “salmonella epidemic of considerable proportions” in late 1988 and, while not substantiating Mrs Currie’s claim that most British egg production was infected, noted that the risks of infection from undercooked eggs were real.

Poultry World was later pivotal in persuading egg producers to sign up to the British Egg Industry Council’s Lion food safety scheme, launched in 1998, which did much to control the stubborn problem of egg-related food poisoning; that year Farrant was appointed MBE. He retired as Poultry World editor in 2003, after 33 years. Egg sales did not return to their 1988 levels until 2013.

Edward John Farrant was born on November 6 1938 and grew up on the family farm at Northiam near Rye in East Sussex. He and his cousins were among the founders of the Romney Marsh Pony Club in 1948, and John’s talent as a jockey soon became apparent.

His father, Bernard, lived to see John win his first race under rules, riding Scottish Flight at Lingfield in 1959, but died when John was 19, leaving him an orphan; his mother Gladys, née Farley, had died when he was 11.

After gaining a BSc in agriculture from Wye College, John used his inheritance to set up an egg farm on an acre of field, with his new wife, Janet. Together they sold “Farmer John’s” eggs to local pubs and shops, and trained point-to-pointers.

After six years the egg business was only earning them £1,600 a year, so he decided to employ a manager on £1,000 a year and get a job as a journalist, in 1967 joining Poultry World on Fleet Street.

The magazine had started life as The Fancier’s Gazette in 1874, aimed at exhibitors of poultry, pigeons, rabbits and dogs, before narrowing to poultry in 1907. Farrant rose quickly to become editor in 1970, winning Agricultural Business Publication of the Year and several prizes for his own journalism, including a Department of Trade and Industry award for an article about humane methods of slaughtering chickens. (In his Two Ronnies style of humour, he told the press he was “stunned”.)

A hard worker, he would go riding in the early hours in Sussex before commuting to London, and returned late in the evening. He would always “go to work on an egg”, and consumed an average of 20 a week. He also served on several committees for the poultry industry and agricultural colleges.

Racing remained his passion, and he was associated with 100 National Hunt winners, either as rider, trainer or owner. He continued to ride his racehorse Quarry Mount until he was 84, and was clerk of the course for the East Sussex and Romney Marsh point-to-point.

John Farrant married, in 1963, Janet Sutton. The marriage was dissolved and in 1986 he married Anne Underwood, who survives him with a son and a daughter from his first marriage.

John Farrant, born November 6 1938, died April 4 2024