EU decides to give battery hens their freedom from 2013

Battery egg production will be banned in the EU from 2013 following agreement between Farm Ministers in Luxembourg yesterday. Agreement on the measure, strongly pushed by an animal welfare-conscious German Presidency, was made easier by the recent Belgian dioxin scare, which has been closely identified in the public mind with industrial production methods.

The move was supported by the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, who also welcomed the declaration that an extension of the ban internationally would be raised in the next round of multilateral trade negotiations under the World Trade Organisation.

Ireland took the view that it would not make sense in overall animal welfare terms if the effect of the ban was simply to reduce the EU flock for the benefit of more competitive third countries, where welfare conditions are less stringent.

Under the agreement, after December 31st, 2012, egg-laying hens in EU countries must either be free-range or reared in coops with a surface area of a minimum of 750 square centimetres (about one square foot). The current norm in EU countries is 450 square centimetres - corresponding to about 22 hens a square metre or square yard. In the US it is 310 square centimetres, equivalent to 32 hens a square metre.

The decision was welcomed by Ms Aoife Ni Fhearghail of Compassion in World Farming Ireland who said it marked "perhaps the greatest day so far for farm animal welfare in Europe and the culmination of our massive pan-European campaign. We are delighted that Europe, by agreeing to scrap this archaic system once and for all, has now voted in a new era of humanity for hens," she said.

Christine Newman adds: A Department of Agriculture spokesman said yesterday said that if costs rose and flocks were reduced in size, then the egg producers in the EU had to be protected. There are about 1,000 egg producers in this State, mainly in the Border areas, Cork and Galway. About 170 are free-range producers.

A spokesman for Irish egg producers said free-range eggs cost 30 to 40 per cent more in the shops.