As I sit at my desk, I am admiring the first proper day of rain seen in the UK for quite a while. Hopefully this will increase grain fill, if it’s not already too late, and improve the European grain harvests that otherwise look as though they may be pretty poor. This of course will have a major impact on costs for the poultry industry. So fingers crossed, things will come right in the weather this harvest time to ensure the economics of product remain favourable in an increasingly unfavourable time for all businesses.

Sadly the global economy is still very uncertain. Even though the media has been talking up the situation in many countries, it now increasingly appears we will have a ‘double dip’ recession, looking at current received wisdom for those in the know. Fortunately this seems to have improved the lot of poultry production where it relates to the sales of cheaper meat products and eggs, at least so many of my commercial contacts are telling me. This would make sense, as people in recession-hit communities’ look for cheaper protein sources and cut back on red meat purchases for the dinner table. So maybe the poultry sector will survive this furore in rather better shape than other parts of agriculture, although we may still suffer with higher prices due to competition for feedstuffs with the human food markets, for example. Whatever the outcome, the poultry industry in general is very efficient and highly adaptable to meet market forces, so we have the best chance of success in tough times.

Recently we’ve had some very good news regarding the WPSJ – our citation rating is once again, on the up! We now have an Impact Factor which has grown by 15.4% to 1.613 from the 2008 level of 1.398. This means that, on average, each review paper published by the WPSJ is cited 1.6 times per year in other journals. Since 2008, the WPSJ has grown from 14th out of 47 in its category (Agriculture, Dairy and Animal Science) to reach 10th out of 49. So not only have we increased our standing, we are now in a more competitive market with higher number of journals in our sector. This makes our rather small journal very important in terms of the readership and usage by other authors. I hope this translates as the WPSJ being the first choice for review papers in the poultry world! The new online system is also going well. We’ve had some transitional issues to deal with, as expected, but we now have papers that are ready for publishing in 2011 (we already have full issues until year end). Apologies for any authors who were expecting a faster turnaround for their publications, but I guess this is a sign of pour success in that we have more papers to process now than before. Never complain about being busy – it’s a good sign and long may it continue for our journal and poultry science.

Dr Lucy Waldron (previously Tucker)

Editor