Working Together For Farm Animals
Fauna Society has been cooperating with the other leading animal protection groups from Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia since 2006 when we jointly lobbied our governments to support the EU's Animal Welfare Action Plan and offered our help in its implementation. We are now working together as part of a project titled “Cooperation of Animal Welfare NGOs in Visegrad”.
The project is co-financed by Eurogroup for Animals, Compassion in World Farming and the International Visegrad Fund.
The organisations taking part in the project are:
Fauna Egyesület, Hungary
Klub Gaja, Poland
Nadace na ochranu zvířat, Czech Republic
OTOZ Animals, Poland
Sloboda Zvierat, Slovakia
The aims of the project:
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To increase the availability of food produced to higher standards of animal welfare, especially eggs produced in the alternative barn, free range and organic systems
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To increase the demand of consumers for such products
In the Visegrad countries, the great majority of egg laying hens are kept in cramped cages. We are concerned that despite growing consumer demand for eggs produced in non-cage production systems (barn, free range and organic suystems) there are few welfare friendly alternatives available in supermarkets. Supermarkets have an enormous influence over the animal welfare standards involved in the production of food, having the power to impose requirements on how food is produced and the ability to promote one product over another. That is why we have contacted the main supermarket chains in Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia asking them whether eggs from non-cage production systems are available in their shops, and if not, whether they plan to introduce these products in the near future.
As animal protection groups, our aim is to improve farm animals' lives by encouraging progress toward higher standards of animal welfare throughout the retail sector and by making consumers more aware of how the food they eat is produced and of the choices that are available.
The animal welfare groups in the Visegrad countries have undertaken a study in order to analyse the availability of eggs from non-cage production systems in the main supermarket chains in the region. This report aims to present the results of the supermarket survey carried out in the four countries, highlight the welfare implications of the various methods of egg farming and to show the business benefits of increasing stocks of eggs from non-cage systems.
The Visegrad animal welfare groups urge all retailers to:
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Introduce a clear Social Corporate Responsibility Policy and make animal welfare a part of this policy. We believe that this is a good indicator of a company's commitment to improving animal welfare and that there is also a strong business case for doing so.
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Introduce and increase stocks of eggs and products containing eggs from hens kept in well managed alternative systems such as barn, free-range or organic systems
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Provide clear labelling on all shell eggs and egg products so that consumers can know about the welfare of the laying hens that produced them
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Educate staff about the various production systems of eggs and egg labelling so that they can pass this information onto consumers
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Introduce an auditing system which will allow to control numbers of eggs sold from each system
The key role that can be played by supermarkets is stressed by the Commission’s socio-economic report. It states that “change will be very much market driven” and that in particular “the attitude of retailers and consumers could be highly important in that (potentially consumer led) moves away from caged eggs by retailers with a substantial market share would have a significant impact on the sector”.
To download the full report in English, please click here.
The Hungarian version of the report was shown on 8th April 2008 in Budapest. The European efforts and achievements toward retailers in different European countries were presented by Peter Vingerling, Consultant for Retail Sector of Eurogroup for Animals (see photo). The Hungarian egg producers were represented by Mr Péter Földi, the Secretary of the Hungarian Poultry Board.
