New Environmental Guidelines for egg industry

Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority and consulting group Integrity Ag Services are helping Australian Eggs to develop new environmental management guidelines for layer farms. We hope that revised guidelines reflect best practice -especially in view of the intensive stocking densities which have been approved for free range egg production. Politicians and bureaucrats succumbed to pressure from industrial-scale egg producers and big grocers. They ignored implications for land sustainability from such high densities. A laying hen produces half a cubic metre of manure a year. So with a stocking density of 10,000 hens per hectare, farmers who follow the advice will see their land covered with 5000 cubic metres of manure per hectare every year. As chicken manure has high levels of nitrogen, 1.5%,phosphorus,0.5% and potassium 0.8%, the land will likely be rendered useless for farming within a few years. Contamination of groundwater and water courses is also likely.