As the bells chimed midnight on December 31st the
law changed right across the EU. With
the adoption of European
Union Council Directive 1999/74/EC conventional
battery cages for chickens are now banned from the EU and it is illegal to sell
battery eggs.
It is still legal
to keep hens in cages, but from now on they have to be the new so called Enriched
or Colony Cages. These allow the birds
more space and head room and also provide features such as a nesting area, a
scratching area and perches for roosting to enrich their lives.
Replacing every
battery cage in Europe has been a big project.
Farmers have had 12 years notice in order to comply and in the UK alone
the industry calculates that egg producers have spent £400m on converting
cages. Nevertheless as the deadline drew near it became clear that many
countries would miss the target. In fact
only 13 out of 27 countries were fully compliant by January 1st. Across the whole of Europe it seems about 14%
of producers have failed to comply with the regulations accounting for some 46
million chickens. In the worst lagging countries, Belgium and Italy, fully one
third of hens are still in battery cages.
Understandably
the British producers, led by the British Egg Industry Council were
increasingly concerned about the apparent unfairness of this situation. Even though the UK is about 85% self
sufficient in eggs, BEIC has called for a ban on imports and in fact began legal
proceedings against the British government to force it to take action against
other countries in the European institutions.
Compliant producers, they argue, have absorbed huge costs already and
there is an increased cost of production associated with the enriched cages. Foreign farmers who have broken the law, they
argue, should not be able to benefit by undercutting British producers.
Their righteous
indignation took something of a knock when it emerged last week that the UK was
among the delinquents. According to
DEFRA, 30 British farms have failed to meet the deadline. BEIC estimate 150,000 birds may be affected,
DEFRA say 1% of the UK flock, which would be more like 350,000. Either way, the government says they must
either comply or cease production by the end of January and the European
Commission says 1% or 30% it’s all the same, the UK will be among the fourteen
countries receiving letters outlining likely remedial procedures later this
month.
I think British
indignation is misplaced. Now I accept
that animal welfare is generally better in the UK than many other parts of
Europe and British farmers are as good as anyone at implementing EU regulations. I also accept that the Enriched cages are an
improvement on the traditional battery cage.
The old cages had
a minimum statutory height of 40cm.
Birds typically stood on a wire floor about 5 to 10 in a cage, each with
a minimum 500 cm² space, about the size of a sheet of A4 paper. They didn’t have enough room to turn around
or to stretch their wings properly. They
lived their whole life indoors in artificially regulated light to maximise
laying, in sheds which reeked of ammonia from piled up excrement. The cages were associated with increased
incidence of ‘feather pecking’ where birds literally peck each other to death, and
the farmers’ response ‘beak trimming’ where young birds actually have their
beaks cut off to prevent pecking. Cages
cause stress, disease, high mortality rates and cannibalism. Surely anything has to be better than that.
The Enriched
cages, great name by the way, increase the headroom to 50 cm. Each cage can now accommodate 60 to 80
chickens, that’s where the word Colony comes from, with each bird allotted an
extra 250 cm², one and a half A4 sheets! The birds usually stand on Astroturf, not
wire, and by having specified laying, perching and scratching places the guano
problem is dealt with more effectively.
It’s still not exactly the Hilton is it?
Does any of this
matter? I mean these are the creatures who famously continue to run around even
if you cut their heads off. How great
exactly is their capacity for suffering?
Well yes it does
matter, I am not a vegetarian but I respect the animals that feed me. I believe any amount of needless suffering is
too much. I also do not want my food to
be associated with stinking, torture chambers.
I believe that healthy food comes from healthy animals. Remember this is the system that has given us
eggs containing listeria and salmonella.
Thankfully I am
not alone. About 50% of the shell eggs
sold in the UK nowadays are ‘free-range’, where chickens actually get the
chance to wander outdoors and walk around in the fresh air. If you consider that commercial purchasers,
hotels, schools, hospitals etc. are more likely to buy on price and therefore
to buy cage eggs, I would argue that the majority of eggs bought directly by
the public are free-range.
Free-range eggs
do cost more. Producers estimate it
costs about 22p to make a free-range egg compared with 11p for a battery egg. The classic argument is choice; let the
consumer decide how much animal welfare they want to pay for. Well I think that the public has chosen. It is notoriously hard to influence indirect
purchases. Who knows what kind of eggs
go in to a Sarah Lee cake or a Tesco quiche?
But when people buy eggs they buy free-range. Also, why should the public have the right to
choose inhumane living conditions for animals in order to shave a few pennies
from the family’s grocery bill? What gives us the right to make chickens pay
the price so that we can buy an extra packet of fags or half a pint of beer?
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| Spot the difference - Free-range chickens |
Germany got rid
of its battery cages five years ago. This year, as the rest of the EU was
switching to enriched cages, Germany moved further ahead to be totally
cage- free. It can be done, it’s what
the public prefers and it is the future.
I don’t blame British farmers; they operate in a commercial environment
and have to be cost conscious. It’s up
to the regulators to set minimum standards and these should be humane, in line
with public attitudes and fit for the current era not the 1950s. We don’t have to wait for the whole EU to
agree on this. As Germany has proved you can chose to unilaterally exceed the
minimum standards.
Perhaps when all our chickens are free-range, or as
the RSPCA put it in their Freedom Food certification, when “every animal reared for food has a happy, healthy life…with an environment
that meets their needs…providing a stimulating environment that enables the
animals to exhibit their natural behaviour”, then we might have room to be sanctimonious.
