Ministers incompetence over egg standards

The decision by Australian Ministers for Consumer Affairs and the Small Business Minister to allow egg producers with outdoor stocking densities of 10,000 hens per hectare to label their eggs as 'free range' demonstrates an incredible level of ignorance as well as gullibility and incompetence. Apart from anything else, thjey seem to have overlooked the fact that each chook excretes half a cubic metre of manure a year – so 10,000 chooks will leave a 5000 cubic metre pile of manure on each hectare of land. Such a heavy nutrient load would destroy the viability of the land and would almost certainly create Massive environmental damage particularly along any watercourses which adjoin the land. As a result, this decision may make it much harder for farmers to set up free range egg farms. Local Shire planning departments will find it easier to reject applications as 'intensive' operations – effectively treating them as feed lots instead of an as-of-right use on land zoned for farming.