About
12m caged chickens live miserably in Australian battery farms. We have a
moral responsibility to act on it by avoiding cage eggs, but instead we
choose to look away
If you are a typical Guardian reader, there’s a good chance you will
head to your local café this weekend for a leisurely brunch of eggs:
scrambled, smashed, poached, or baked into a Middle Eastern shakshuka.
Accompanied by a deftly foamed latte – perhaps a conversation about the
latest Scandinavian crime show – it is a much-loved custom of modern,
middle-class life.
But this genteel ritual conceals an ugly reality. As demonstrated by last week’s exposé of battery hen production at a Pace Farm contractor, eggs in this country are often produced in distressingly inhumane conditions. The Animals Australia footage shows thousands of hens crammed into wire cages suspended above vast mountains of faeces (a stark contrast to Pace’s marketing which describes its eggs as “sourced from the most modern farms, from the healthiest hens, and treated with the greatest care”). While that example is particularly egregious, other battery hens fare little better: all of them are confined into cages allowing them the size of an A4 piece of paper, with no room to flap their wings.
Of course, many of us opt for more humanely produced eggs in the supermarket – a choice that requires navigating confusing labelling laws – or patronise cafés that offer free-range eggs. But the reality is up to 70% of eggs we consume still originate from cage eggs, including the vast majority of those used in the food processing and restaurant sectors. So while your eggs benedict may claim to come from a sunny, local farm, the Portuguese tarts, banana bread and aioli on the menu likely come from somewhere far more shadowy and sinister.
In embracing the medieval cruelty of the battery cage, Australia finds itself increasingly out of step with international norms. Since 2012, the European Union has completely banned the Australian method of cage production. New Zealand plans to phase it out by 2022. India, which is the world’s third largest producer of eggs, recently ruled the practice illegal. In the US, where a powerful farm lobby holds sway over law-makers, a more radical strategy is being tried. Bill Gates-backed startup Hampton Creek is selling plant-based alternatives to eggs that are cheaper than the real thing, one of a growing number of enterpreneurial ventures offering sustainable solutions to factory farming.
By contrast, in Australia there are few signs of seismic change. Despite the progress made in supermarkets – especially the welcome announcement by Woolworths that it would phase out battery eggs by 2018 – the egg industry is still brazenly defending its right to the wire cage. A review by state and federal agriculture ministers was set to begin in 2010, but has since been shelved. In fact, there’s even talk of introducing US-style “ag-gag” laws that might have prevented the recent exposé from ever coming to light.
Meanwhile, in the absence of regulatory reform, the majority of us continue to eat cage eggs. The question of why we do so, when surveys generally find most of us disapprove of the method, is complex. But part of the answer may be the socio-legal no man’s land that chickens are unlucky enough to find themselves in.
As the Australian rights scholar Dinesh Wadiwel has pointed out, these animals exist in what is known as a state of exception: a netherworld of society where the rights usually afforded to individuals are suspended by the state. The archetypal example of such a space is the government-run camp: think the Manus Island detention centre. But another kind is the hidden gulag of factory farms, where Australia’s 12m caged chickens live miserably without the basic protections afforded to other animals in human society, such as pets.
Perhaps it is Australia’s vast geographic scale and emptiness that allows for these zones of exception to flourish out of sight and out of mind, causing us little moral disquiet. But if we do feel concern – and I think most of us do – we have a moral responsibility to act on it by avoiding cage eggs, including those eggs used in the food industry, rather than maintaining a wilful ignorance. Even if that means opting for toast and Vegemite this weekend.
But this genteel ritual conceals an ugly reality. As demonstrated by last week’s exposé of battery hen production at a Pace Farm contractor, eggs in this country are often produced in distressingly inhumane conditions. The Animals Australia footage shows thousands of hens crammed into wire cages suspended above vast mountains of faeces (a stark contrast to Pace’s marketing which describes its eggs as “sourced from the most modern farms, from the healthiest hens, and treated with the greatest care”). While that example is particularly egregious, other battery hens fare little better: all of them are confined into cages allowing them the size of an A4 piece of paper, with no room to flap their wings.
Of course, many of us opt for more humanely produced eggs in the supermarket – a choice that requires navigating confusing labelling laws – or patronise cafés that offer free-range eggs. But the reality is up to 70% of eggs we consume still originate from cage eggs, including the vast majority of those used in the food processing and restaurant sectors. So while your eggs benedict may claim to come from a sunny, local farm, the Portuguese tarts, banana bread and aioli on the menu likely come from somewhere far more shadowy and sinister.
In embracing the medieval cruelty of the battery cage, Australia finds itself increasingly out of step with international norms. Since 2012, the European Union has completely banned the Australian method of cage production. New Zealand plans to phase it out by 2022. India, which is the world’s third largest producer of eggs, recently ruled the practice illegal. In the US, where a powerful farm lobby holds sway over law-makers, a more radical strategy is being tried. Bill Gates-backed startup Hampton Creek is selling plant-based alternatives to eggs that are cheaper than the real thing, one of a growing number of enterpreneurial ventures offering sustainable solutions to factory farming.
By contrast, in Australia there are few signs of seismic change. Despite the progress made in supermarkets – especially the welcome announcement by Woolworths that it would phase out battery eggs by 2018 – the egg industry is still brazenly defending its right to the wire cage. A review by state and federal agriculture ministers was set to begin in 2010, but has since been shelved. In fact, there’s even talk of introducing US-style “ag-gag” laws that might have prevented the recent exposé from ever coming to light.
Meanwhile, in the absence of regulatory reform, the majority of us continue to eat cage eggs. The question of why we do so, when surveys generally find most of us disapprove of the method, is complex. But part of the answer may be the socio-legal no man’s land that chickens are unlucky enough to find themselves in.
As the Australian rights scholar Dinesh Wadiwel has pointed out, these animals exist in what is known as a state of exception: a netherworld of society where the rights usually afforded to individuals are suspended by the state. The archetypal example of such a space is the government-run camp: think the Manus Island detention centre. But another kind is the hidden gulag of factory farms, where Australia’s 12m caged chickens live miserably without the basic protections afforded to other animals in human society, such as pets.
Perhaps it is Australia’s vast geographic scale and emptiness that allows for these zones of exception to flourish out of sight and out of mind, causing us little moral disquiet. But if we do feel concern – and I think most of us do – we have a moral responsibility to act on it by avoiding cage eggs, including those eggs used in the food industry, rather than maintaining a wilful ignorance. Even if that means opting for toast and Vegemite this weekend.
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