French government wants to ban sales of eggs from hens in cages
Eggs sold in France's supermarkets must come from free-range hens by 2022 announced Stephane Travert, the agriculture minister. Speaking at a TV show on Europe1, the official said that this measure is a promise made in 2017 by president Emmanuel Macron to WorldWide Fund for Nature (WWF) to ban the sale of the eggs from caged hens.
Still, processed eggs are not to be affected by the ban, as mentioned minister Travert. "The French industry is doing well, little by little there is less battery breeding but it is not possible to ban all battery farms," he said on TV, informs Connexion France magazine.
A recent poll showed that 90% of the voters are backing this measure. Small battery cages are banned in the EU since 2012 but breeders are allowed to use colony cages that can contain up to 80 hens. France's per capita consumption of eggs is about 220 a year, the highest in EU. Last year there were 48.6 million hens in France, egg production reaching up to 14.4 billion eggs, as reported by The Times.
Retailers have already responded to this trend. Monoprix stopped selling battery eggs in 2016, Carrefour will sell only free-range eggs from 2020, and Auchan had set itself a target of 2025 before the government's announcement.
On the other hand, chicken farmers are nervous about the amount of money they need to spend in order to implement the new set of requirements and for the fact that the time horizon seems pretty short. According to some estimates made by the National Committee for the Promotion of Eggs, by 2022, only 50% of the eggs will be compliant to this law and the costs are up to 500 million euros.
At the same time, a state of nervousness is to be seen between animal welfare activists who claim that the government is not going far enough with the new rules. Still, Compassion in World Farming mentioned France as the first to ban the sale of eggs from hens in cages.
(Photo source: Pixabay)
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