French activists target illegal cages
Animal rights activists have released video footage which they say shows hens still being "crammed into cages" on French farms, despite the introduction of a ban on the use of conventional laying cages by the European Union.
The regulation banning the use of conventional laying cages came into force with the Welfare of Laying Hens Directive on January 1 this year, although UK egg industry leaders have estimated that as many as one third of laying hens in other EU states would still have been in such cages when the ban took effect. The British Egg Industry Council (BEIC) estimated that 84 million hens would still be kept in illegal battery cage conditions at the onset of the new rules. NFU poultry board chairman Charles Bourns told those who attended the British Free Range Egg Producers’ Association (BFREPA) annual conference that 50 per cent of hens in Spain would be non-compliant by January 1, 60 per cent of Italian hens would be non-compliant and 50 per cent of Polish hens.
France has also been highlighted as one of the member states that would fail to be fully compliant with the new rules when they came into force. Charles Bourns said that between 20 and 25 per cent of French hens would still be in conventional cages. The French authorities claim that the percentage of non-compliant hens in France is smaller than estimates quoted here in the UK.
Now, a French animal welfare group has shot video footage at farms in France where it says hens are still being housed in the same cramped conditions as before. The welfare group, L214, says that some French farmers are simply ignoring the rules and it fears that no action will be taken against them by the authorities. "Nothing has changed," Brigitte Gothiere, a member of the group, told the Ranger. "The Minister says that 85 per cent of hens in France are now in new cages, but that still means that 15 per cent are still in old barren battery cages. We want the European Union to take action," she said.
Brigitte Gothiere said that the French authorities had failed in the past to take sufficient action to enforce welfare rules. "There were new rules on foie gras production introduced in January 2011 but nothing has been done. Nothing happens. Any fines are not big enough and farmers just carry on as before. It is not right."
The French welfare campaigners shot video film at six farms. L214 said it was difficult to see any difference between conditions before the start of the ban and afterwards. It said conditions were miserable. Chickens were "crammed into cages, without access to the outside, plucked, drooping crests, beaks clipped and blocking dead eggs." The group said it found that dead hens had been left to rot in their cages. Nothing had changed, it said, at several farms in Britanny, which it had visited before and found to be in flagrant breach of animal welfare rules.
L214 said that on one farm, near Languidic, it found a shed filled with 4,140 cages, some crammed with six or seven hens. The 19in (48cm) deep cages were designed for three birds but on average 20,700 birds were crammed five to a cage. The group monitored the birds for more than a year. It said the farm was a major supplier to a leading international egg processing plant in the region, which sold to British food manufacturers and caterers. One of the fears of UK egg industry leaders is that illegal cage eggs will find their way into egg product and manufactured food products destined for the British market. British egg producers who have invested in free range and enriched colony units to ensure they comply with the new rules will be unable to compete on price with illegally produced eggs from conventional battery cages.
L214 is calling on consumers in France to boycott cage eggs and wants supermarkets to ban them from their shelves. It wants the European Union and the French authorities to seriously enforce the new regulations, and Le Parisien has warned in an article that the French government may be hauled before the European Court of Justice for failing to impose the new rules on its egg producers. It said that France and other EU states that failed to enforce the regulations could face heavy fines.
Le Parisien has been told by the French Ministry of Agriculture that it does intend to apply the rules. It said that efforts were under way to "regularise the situation of non-compliant farms, and the Directorate General for Food set up inspections on January 1." It said that France had an action plan to control non-compliant farms. They would be ordered to close within a month or upgrade within three months.
Brigitte Gothi’re said that 80 per cent of French people considered it unacceptable to allow chickens to be kept in such conditions. She said that L214 would continue to campaign and maintain pressure to ensure that French egg producers complied with the new European Union regulations.
