MODESTO -- U.S. egg producers and animal welfare groups announced a compromise Thursday on how much cage space to provide for hens.
The agreement calls for roughly doubling the industry standard of 67 square inches of floor space per bird.
California producers, some of them in the Modesto area, would have to comply by 2021, after meeting interim rules by 2015. Those in other states could install the new cages over 18 years.
The parties, including United Egg Producers and the Humane Society of the United States, are asking Congress to put the new standards into law.
At a Washington, D.C., news conference, they said the agreement could end the often-bitter debate over whether hens have enough space to move around.
"It is a major, major investment by the industry to improve welfare," said Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive officer of the Humane Society.
The industry plans to spend about $4 billion on the new cages. They might raise egg prices slightly, but many consumers will not mind paying extra for something they feel was produced humanely, said Bob Krouse, an Indiana egg farmer and chairman of the industry group.
The announcement comes at a time when there's growing interest by consumers in supporting sustainable farms as well as those operating near their homes — the local food movement. Consumers also are focusing more on how things are grown and raised on the farm, from chemical use to animal welfare.
"This is an exciting, historic and thrilling moment for those of us in egg production," he said.
The compromise will work for J.S. West & Cos., an egg producer based in Modesto, chairman Gary West said.
"We've been trying to negotiate with them for a long time," said West, who is on the board of the industry group.
The minimum floor space under the national standards would be 124 square inches for hens that lay white eggs and 144 for the larger hens that lay brown eggs.
The new cages would have separate areas where hens could nest, perch and indulge in their habit of bathing in dust. Today's standard cages do not have these features.
The issue is closely watched in the Northern San Joaquin Valley, where egg farmers had an estimated $133 million in gross income in 2009.
Hens typically are housed six to a cage in barns that can hold more than 100,000 total birds. The 67 square inches per hen is about equal to a letter-sized sheet of paper, but industry leaders say this is a humane way of treating birds that literally like to flock together.
California voters in 2008 approved Proposition 2, which said cages by 2015 must provide enough room for hens to stand up, turn around and flap their wings freely.
J.S. West was the first producer to install cages aimed at complying with the measure. This Livingston-area barn, housing about 8 percent of the company's flock, provides 116 square inches of floor space per hen.
The Humane Society had argued that Proposition 2 requires at least 214 square inches.
That dispute seems to be moot with Thursday's agreement. It allows California producers to provide 116 square inches per white hen and 134 inches per brown hen from 2015 through 2020. After that, the higher national standard would apply.
The Association of California Egg Farmers had a mixed reaction.
President Arnie Riebli said he welcomed the Humane Society's compromise on cage size but did not like that California has an earlier deadline than other states for meeting the national standards.
The passage of Proposition 2 had raised concerns in the industry that similar measures would crop up in other states. Krouse said the national standards would be better than state-by-state regulation.
As part of the compromise, the Humane Society is halting hen cage initiatives planned in Oregon and Washington state.
Bee staff writer John Holland can be reached at jholland@modbee.com or (209) 578-2385.
RSS
E-Mail
Print
reprint or license
