The following article is a summary of the presentation delivered by Elwyn Griffiths, of Griffiths Family Farms, at Poultry Network Live in early September.
“LIKE many in primary agriculture, the egg sector faces a wide range of issues, from COVID, which hit businesses hard overnight, to the lingering effects of avian influenza.
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On top of that, the sector is under increasing pressure from social media and fake news, with media focus switching from welfare to the environment.
We’ve now got this whole mess of consumers subjected to the opinions of a wide range of influencers, all with their own agendas, and producers are at the bottom and largely ignored.
It has reached the point where the voices calling for environmental action are now overtaking welfare.
Perceived welfare
In eggs, the move to 2025 and removal of colony systems was originally driven from a perceived welfare point of view that birds housed in colonies was bad.
Although still an efficient system, from an environmental standpoint, the new cage-free systems use more energy to produce a dozen eggs than the colony systems do.
When we look at free range and discuss its “benefits”, we must acknowledge that free range egg production is more expensive, it presents its own challenges for the birds, it requires a lot more land and management time, so it must be considered a less efficient way to produce food.
‘Science should lead the way’
Simply put, free range is viewed as being better for the birds because they have a door to the outside world, although science shows us that most hens choose to stay indoors where it is warm and safe.
Instead of science leading the way, the future of farming is being led by social media but with fake news, you don’t know what to believe any more.
The NGOs and pressure groups are well organised, well-funded and they have ‘loud voices’.
Recently, pressure groups have issued new guidance on how to manage birds, they believe it was a nice idea to have windows for natural light in laying houses and suggest it has worked for broilers.
But they haven’t taken account of seasonality and the need for artificial light for layers in the winter. Hens are not broilers.
Investment based on robust research
Proper science should lead the way, and changes to systems that have massive financial implications for farmers should be rigorously trialled here in the UK on farms from the north of Scotland to the south of England. That will take time and funding.
We can see the results of this “pressure” being played out on supermarket shelves as retailer have made commitments to cut ranges which has removed choice from consumers.
We have always had a core of consumers in the country who need to purchase low-cost food, including value ranges, this has been made more severe by the cost of living crisis.
Today, in the stores which still have them, we are seeing volumes increase.
Need for food policy
Finally we must recognise that the government does not have a food policy and appears to be happy to outsource what we don’t produce, even though we could.
That leaves the country open to inferior products, produced without the same welfare or environmental regulations that we ourselves must meet.
If there was a policy, we would see support in obtaining planning permission for new production units, whereas what we actually see is increasing opposition and higher environmental regulation.
So without sounding bleak, we have a real challenge on our hands. Rather than putting farmers at the bottom of the pile, why not use their knowledge and skills to determine the future of food?
We need to have a government that is committed to supporting the production of food in this country, then we must follow a proper “science-led” plan that balances the real needs of animals from a welfare point of view, against those needed to safeguard the environment.
