West Australian farmers are worried they will not have the ability to produce adequate free-range eggs to satisfy customer need when caged eggs are phased out.
Key points:
- Caged eggs will be phased out nationally by 2036
- 36 percent of WA’s eggs are caged
- Farmers fear they will not have the ability to stay up to date with customer need for free-range eggs
Australia will phase out standard layer hen cages by 2036, news that came amidst an egg scarcity in WA.
Albany Fresh Farm Eggs owner Colin Ford’s 18,000 free-range hens have a laying rate of about 90 percent, a figure comparable to caged-egg production.
But he stated that would still not suffice for producers.
” I’m not too sure that totally free variety can provide the need for eggs … I’m not too sure where it’s going to head to when the restriction on cages enters into location,” he stated.
” I believe the market will need to do a great deal of soul browsing to see where they’re going to get the bulk of their production from in regards to the production market for eggs.”
WA egg lack continues
Commercial Egg Producers Association of WA president Ian Wilson, a free-range farmer near Fremantle, stated he might not see any take advantage of the phase-out of caged eggs.
” We have a hard time at the minute to have adequate eggs on the racks,” he stated.
” By phasing out the cages that’s going to remove more eggs that have the ability to exist to the general public.”
Currently in WA, about 36 percent of eggs produced are caged.
” Over time when we take that portion out it will leave a huge vacuum to fill,” Mr Wilson stated.
” With the loss of [the] caged system, we truly will discover that we will have a hard time to have adequate eggs.”
Free-range premium rate
Mr Ford’s operation is not your common free-range farm, performing at 2,000 hens per hectare compared to the market requirement of 10,000
He stated to produce eggs the method he did, additional expenses were sustained for the premium item.
” A great deal of it boils down to expense of production, and clearly we sustain additional expenses to be able to attain what we wish to accomplish … we can’t complete on cost,” he stated.
” What we attempt to do is deal with the bird instead of versus it, so we offer the bird with an environment where it can show all its natural behaviours.”
He stated what he did was a specific niche technique.
” You can’t [just] transform to this system, you’ve got to be all in to do it effectively,” Mr Ford stated.
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