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21/03/2006
‘Don’t let them save the cage’
A leading welfare group has launched a campaign to try and prevent the intensive egg sector saving the cage.
Compassion in World Farming believes that the EU, which is due to make a final decision this year, will “chicken out” and allow the conventional cage an extended lease of life.
Under a decision made in 1999 the conventional cage—described by CIWF as “barren”—is due to be outlawed in 2012. But that decision needs to be ratified by this year’s review of the Welfare Directive. In recent months a high-pressure campaign has been mounted by the cage industry across Europe—and including the UK—to have the decision delayed by at least ten years.
With over 80 per cent of Europe’s hens still in cages the sector has just been handed a major last minute boost to their arguments in the shape of avian influenza. They will be arguing that in the face of the AI threat any decision to close down a system in which birds are kept entirely indoors would be foolhardy.
CIWF is in no doubt about the position. “The 1999 Laying Hens Directive represents a historic victory for animal welfare,” it says in its magazine, Farm Animal Voice. “However the enormous welfare benefits of this vital piece of legislation are now under threat because some within the industry are calling for the ban, due to come into effect in 2012, to be delayed by up to ten years.
“This would condemn around 3.5 billion more laying hens to a life of confinement, deprivation and suffering.
“We need to make sure that the 2012 cap on battery cages is not delayed by industry pressure.”
The organisation is also opposed to the enriched cage “as it fails to overcome many of the welfare problems inherent in the battery cage”.
“Farmers should move to humane free range and barn systems where hens have the freedom to express natural behaviour,” it says. CIWF is issuing supporters with pre-printed postcards which they are invited to post to EU agriculture commissioner Fischer Boel. It urges the Commission to press ahead with the cage ban.
Compassion in World Farming believes that the EU, which is due to make a final decision this year, will “chicken out” and allow the conventional cage an extended lease of life.
Under a decision made in 1999 the conventional cage—described by CIWF as “barren”—is due to be outlawed in 2012. But that decision needs to be ratified by this year’s review of the Welfare Directive. In recent months a high-pressure campaign has been mounted by the cage industry across Europe—and including the UK—to have the decision delayed by at least ten years.
With over 80 per cent of Europe’s hens still in cages the sector has just been handed a major last minute boost to their arguments in the shape of avian influenza. They will be arguing that in the face of the AI threat any decision to close down a system in which birds are kept entirely indoors would be foolhardy.
CIWF is in no doubt about the position. “The 1999 Laying Hens Directive represents a historic victory for animal welfare,” it says in its magazine, Farm Animal Voice. “However the enormous welfare benefits of this vital piece of legislation are now under threat because some within the industry are calling for the ban, due to come into effect in 2012, to be delayed by up to ten years.
“This would condemn around 3.5 billion more laying hens to a life of confinement, deprivation and suffering.
“We need to make sure that the 2012 cap on battery cages is not delayed by industry pressure.”
The organisation is also opposed to the enriched cage “as it fails to overcome many of the welfare problems inherent in the battery cage”.
“Farmers should move to humane free range and barn systems where hens have the freedom to express natural behaviour,” it says. CIWF is issuing supporters with pre-printed postcards which they are invited to post to EU agriculture commissioner Fischer Boel. It urges the Commission to press ahead with the cage ban.
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