SIR – Several aid charities are once again making their Christmas pitch for donations to buy farmed animals for some of the world’s poorest communities. While these schemes may seem like a great idea, the reality is that such ‘gifts’ can actually increase 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 growing foods for people to eat directly rather than first passing nutrients through animals.

Animal farming is also more environmentally destructive, as well as being a major source of climate-changing gases.

Animal Aid is keenly concerned about the welfare of the animals themselves. Where impoverished people cannot afford to feed and care for their animals, those animals endure extreme suffering and die.

There are many ethical projects that people can support instead. They include tree planting and water management schemes. Animal Aid, in the past, has raised money for irrigation and tree-planting projects linked to a vegetarian orphanage in the Rift Valley province of Kenya.

Andrew Tyler, director, Animal Aid, The Old Chapel, Bradford Street, Tonbridge