There has been fury in the British egg industry recently over the issue of battery chickens and their eggs. Many of us are aware that there has been outrage over the living conditions of battery hens in the past and as a result of this outrage, the European Union introduced laws to increase the quality of life of laying hens.

The British egg farmers have been making moves to comply with this legislation. In effect, the conventional ‘battery’ cages are to be jettisoned as of the beginning of 2012. This has been an expensive business for farmers – Farming UK reported that some £400 million has been spent on replacing the cages with new ‘enriched colony cages.’

This is all good news for the British hens – however, it has come to light that not all EU countries have been as diligent as the UK farmers and it is said that Spain, Italy and Poland have not complied with the EU legislation. The British Egg Industry Council is therefore furious that the Agriculture Minister has said that it would be too costly for the government to ban the import of these battery eggs and also it would be too difficult to enforce.

Of course, the worry for the law-abiding British egg farmers is that they have splashed out on the improved cages for their chickens, but may be undercut in the market by the influx of cheaper battery hen eggs from the rest of the EU.

Posted by Matt on the 20th December 2011