‘Free-range eggs’ in EU may very well be from birds housed all their lives indoors | Hen flu

Eggs produced within the EU might proceed to be labelled as “free vary”, even when the birds usually are not allowed outdoors, underneath new proposals.

The European Fee has put ahead plans for scrapping the time restrict on the advertising and marketing of eggs as free vary if chickens are pressured to be housed to scale back the danger of outbreaks of hen flu.

It comes after mainland Europe and the UK have suffered the worst hen flu outbreak on file this yr. Greater than 46 million birds have been culled on farms throughout the continent to date, with France struggling significantly badly. Within the UK, there have been greater than 100 extremely pathogenic outbreaks.

In previous years, outbreaks of avian influenza (AI) declined with hotter climate and the tip of the wild-bird migration within the autumn and winter months. However outbreaks have continued throughout the UK and elsewhere in Europe for much longer this yr.

The order to maintain birds indoors within the UK, which started final November, was lifted solely in August, whereas in some elements of the Netherlands housing orders have now lasted greater than 10 months.

Marion Koopmans, a World Well being Group adviser, has mentioned hen flu was now not only a seasonal risk, with native circulation now year-round in Europe. An avian flu vaccine for chickens shouldn’t be but obtainable, though trials are underneath approach.

Farmers have been given longer and longer grace intervals of 12, and now 16 weeks, throughout which period eggs can proceed to be marketed as free vary so long as a obligatory housing order is in place.

Nonetheless, this yr, the prolonged outbreaks meant that after a 16-week grace interval, free-range eggs needed to carry a label saying they had been “barn eggs” – the time period for eggs from hens stored indoors completely.

There have been fears of a collapse of the free-range egg sector if producers might now not label their eggs as free vary, regardless of the additional prices related to the assembly the usual, reminiscent of decreased stocking density. Final yr, virtually two-thirds of 11.3bn eggs produced within the UK had been free vary.

Underneath the brand new guidelines, farmers within the EU would now not must drop the free-range label on their eggs if there was an prolonged obligatory housing order.

A draft proposal from the fee, which might have to be accredited by the European parliament earlier than it went into pressure, says: “The place momentary restrictions have been imposed on the idea of [European] Union laws, eggs could also be marketed as ‘free vary’ however that restriction.”

Egg producers within the UK mentioned it was important that the UK authorities now adopted swimsuit to keep away from British suppliers being undercut by EU imports.

Robert Gooch, chief govt of the British Free Vary Egg Producers Affiliation, mentioned: “It’s very essential that the UK aligns with the EU, in any other case retailers will import eggs labelled as free vary from housed hens within the EU within the occasion of an AI epidemic when there are none on the UK market.”

The Division for Surroundings, Meals and Rural Affairs is known to be contemplating how to answer the EU’s proposals.