Friday, May 20, 2016

Enriched hen housing subsidized



The Egg Farmers of Ontario marketing board is subsidizing members who adopt “enriched housing” for their hens.

The subsidy is a rebate of 10 cents a dozen on the levy all members pay to fund the board.

Yet there is no evidence that the public wants enriched housing. It’s rare to find eggs from those hens offered for sale.

Harry Pelissero, general manager of the board, said he is not aware of any grading station offering a premium price for eggs from enriched housing, nor that any are able to pass extra costs on to their retail, restaurant or foodservice clients.

Pelissero said the rebate is justified on the basis that it costs more to produce eggs from hens in enriched housing. His brother is one of those producers as are several board members.

Pelissero said board member Dan Veldman found he needed twice as much barn space per bird for enriched housing. He built an addition for 10,000 birds and the barn space would have normally been large enough for 20,000.

The cages also cost more.

However, retailers have been succumbing to lobbying pressure from welfare activist organizations, such as the Humane Society of the United States, to announce deadlines by which they will no longer buy eggs from farmers who house hens in cages.

The Egg Farmers of Canada, the national agency for supply management, has set a deadline to phase out caging hens.

Pelissero said a cost-of-production survey is underway this year and the results will be available next year and then it will become clear how much more alternative housing systems cost.

The rebate will be adjusted according to the cost-of-production survey results, he said.

Manitoba is also offered a rebate of four to five cents a dozen for enriched housing, Pelissero said.

Ontario egg producer Darryl Phoenix tried housing hens without cages and said one of the unintended consequences is a great amount of dust in the air.

He said people don’t want to go into those barns to collect eggs and he said he assumes air quality is a welfare issue for the hens. He abandoned his trial.