Farmers kill billions of chickens every year to feed our insatiable hunger for our feathered friends' tasty flesh.

But this hen-ocide could soon be stopped if an experiment designed to grow chicken breast meat in the laboratory is successful.

Israeli scientists have revealed details of a "magic solution" which could put an end to the grim existence of the " most abused animals on the planet ".

The Modern Agriculture Foundation has launched the world's only project designed to master the artificial growth of chicken.

“We are a group of caring individuals who came to the conclusion that what the world needs urgently, in terms of helping both the environment and animals, is for everybody to go vegan” said MAF founder Shir Friedman .

"That’s not realistic.

"So when we heard about the idea of cultured meat, we realized this is a way to reduce harm to animals and the environment while giving people the meat they want to eat.”

The MAF has joined forces with Tel Aviv University to design a process which can grow artificial chicken from just one cell.

To make meat, stem cells are nurtured in a nutrient-packed medium before being made to grow around a scaffold.

If it works, the process would grow chicken which is indistinguishable from the real thing - because it pretty much is the real thing.

This process is similar to that which has already produced lab-grown beef.

The first results of this experiment are due to be announced in January 2016,

Friedman added: "We are simply letting biology do its thing, letting cells create the muscle tissue they know how to create.

"The meat will be identical in taste and flavor and ingredients to meat from an animal — if anything, healthier because we can control the amount of cholesterol and fat."

It is estimated that almost one billion birds - the vast majority of them chickens - are killed each year in the UK.

Animal farming is known to a major contributor to the emission of greenhouse gases, meaning fake chicken could save humanity as surely as it stops the hen-mageddon currently underway