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.
