Several aid charities are once again making their, by now traditional, Christmas pitch for donations to buy farmed animals for some of the world's poorest communities.

At first sight, it's an uplifting idea but the reality is such animal gifts add to rather than diminish poverty.

That's because animal farming is a wasteful way of deploying limited agricultural resources (labour, land, energy and water). You can feed many more people by directing those resources to growing foods for people to eat directly rather than first passing nutrients through animals.

In areas where people are destitute and where there is no surplus wealth, it is more essential than ever to use such resources to best effect. Animal farming is also more environmentally destructive, as well as being a major source of climate changing gases – generating more such emissions than the whole of the global transport sector.

Inevitably, Animal Aid is keenly concerned about the welfare of the animals themselves. Please contact Animal Aid (or go to www.animalaid.org.uk) for a list of organisations that help animals, people and the environment.

Andrew Tyler, Animal Aid,Tonbridge, Kent.