SALON

Saturday, Jun 2, 2012 6:45 PM UTC

Federal bill would give nation’s hens bigger cages

By

Topics: From the Wires,

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — The animal welfare advocates that gave egg-laying hens more room in California are trying to expand chicken coops across the nation with an unlikely ally — a group that previously had been its biggest opponent.

The effort to increase cage sizes for the 270 million laying hens in the U.S. is a compromise bill working its way through Congress supported by the Humane Society of the United States and the United Egg Producers, the industry’s largest advocacy group.

The improbable alliance has formed amid a nationwide push by some consumers, grocers and restaurants to improve living conditions for farm animals that provide food for the table.

The Humane Society championed efforts to pass Proposition 2 in California in 2008 to get egg-laying hens out of cramped cages and put them in larger enclosures that give them room to stretch, perch, scratch and flap their wings.

The United Egg Producers fought that effort vigorously, opposing the changes as needless and expensive. But now the industry group is working with its former foe to head off more voter initiatives in other states that would cause a confusing array of regulations for producers who ship across state borders.

The Humane Society prefers doing away with cages altogether but sees this compromise bill as a way to improve the standard of living for hens across the country.

“We believe it’s good for California hens, and for hens in the other 49 states as well,” said Paul Shapiro, director of the Humane Society factory farming campaign. “In other many other states, there is little hope for change.”

Opposition to the proposal also has brought together a surprising pairing of adversaries — the Humane Farming Association, a farm animal protection group, and most of the nation’s leading beef and pork producers, who fear they will be the next target of legislation.

The Humane Farming Association says that the 63 percent of Californians who thought they voted to free chickens from cages will feel betrayed by the proposed nationwide rules.

“They’re condemning them to generation after generation of lifetimes of misery,” said Bradley Miller, the association’s executive director. “Their basic argument is since they can’t outlaw cages everywhere, let’s not outlaw them anywhere, and that’s absurd.”

The federal legislation was introduced in the Senate on May 24 by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein and in the House earlier this year by Oregon Democrat Kurt Schrader, California Republican Jeff Denham and others.

It would amend the Egg Products Inspection Act to require producers to improve conditions for hens now housed in bare wire cages that give each bird the space equivalent to a standard sheet of paper.

If passed, it would end the ongoing debate over California’s Proposition 2, which said chickens should be able to stand up and spread their wings without touching cage walls, something many interpret to mean “cage-free” since no such system exists.

But egg industry officials say cages are possible under the proposition’s wording, and they’ve offered to transition to the so-called enriched colony systems that offer chickens much more room to move around and engage in natural behaviors such as perching. Such systems now required in the European Union.

“It’s not a settled issue, and that’s the real problem,” Shapiro said. “It was a matter of debate then and is still debated today.”

The federal legislation would give chickens 125 square inches of space within 15 years, a period that would allow farmers gradually to upgrade their housing systems. Proposition 2 did not set specific cage sizes, but one UC Davis expert said 93 square inches each would meet the requirements.

Within a year of enactment, consumers would easily be able to tell how their eggs are produced by one of four labels mandated on cartons: eggs from caged hens; eggs from enriched systems; cage-free hens; free-range hens.

Research in Europe shows that offered these explanations, more and more consumers choose eggs from hens treated better.

In a recent talk explaining the proposed law, United Egg Producers president Gene Gregory worked to convince his members that the caged chicken battle was an emotional issue they would never win.

Four states besides California are phasing in new laws that give chickens more room in cages. Nineteen more states allow voters to make new laws through the initiative process, which the Humane Society vowed to pursue and the egg industry group sought to avoid.

The Humane Society said it compromised in part because the states with the most chickens — Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Texas — don’t allow ballot initiatives.

“We’ve had this battle for a long time, and it’s costing a lot of money,” Gregory told the Associated Press. “But we have to do something for our customers and consumers other than an unsustainable cage-free industry.”

Gregory said his group reached out to the Humane Society and proposed the national enriched colony plan.

“They were receptive to that,” he said.

It turns out there is a benefit for egg farmers to the new system. According to preliminary data collected at JS West in Modesto, so far California’s only egg producer with an enriched colony system, chickens in in the larger European-style cages produce more eggs in a year, have lower mortality rates and have better feather cover — a sign of good health.

“They’re producing well, if not better,” said Jill Benson of JS West, which sells the eggs under the Comfort Coop label. “You can see them engaging in all of these natural behaviors that they didn’t have the opportunity to do before.”

None of this satisfies Miller at the Humane Farming Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, or a coalition of beef, pork and lamb producers that organized as unlikely bedfellows.

In a letter to Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat who is chairwoman of the agriculture committee, the coalition urged the defeat of the bill so they would not become the next target.

“Our gravest concern,” the letter stated, “is that this could leach into all corners of animal farming, irreparably damaging the lives of family farmers across the country.”

___

To view the Comfort Coop chickens live go to: http://bit.ly/hwpldH

___

Twitter: http://twitter.com/TConeAP

More Tracie Cone.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations