Monday, January 30, 2012

Backyarders now blamed for egg industry woes

The Australian Egg Corporation says that backyard flocks now account for about 12% of egg production in Australia. The reality is people have always had chooks - but the numbers are now growing because the community is fed up with the dishonesty of producers who mislabel their eggs.
Customers aren't stupid, they know that the Egg Corp allows intensively-farmed eggs go be labelled as 'free range' and that this situation will be even worse if the new standard is pushed through which endorses a proposed stocking density of up to 20,000 hens per hectare.
It was a great talking point at Farmers' Markets over the weekend - particularly at Churchill Island and Inverloch.

1 comment:

XTrail DayTripper said...

Lies and intensive farming are the exact reason why we have our own chooks these days. We live on a good sized residential block and have plenty of grassy area for our girls to freerange each day. We get enough eggs for our selves and our neighbours too. The eggs we get are just gorgeous and our chooks are very happy indeed!

Many people still don't know where their eggs come from... I didn't either until we decided to get our own little flock. Now I know I am so glad I don't need to buy eggs from the supermarket.