Providing subsidies to poultry farms to build better coops cannot resolve issues arising from an industry plagued by a backward system of raising chickens and lagging technology, animal groups and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) said yesterday.
More than 80 percent of hens in the nation are still kept in cages with no room to move, Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan executive director Chu Tseng-hung (朱增宏) told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
These chickens have lower immunity systems because they are constantly under stress, Chu added.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
A special budget to help farmers upgrade coops should be based on the Council of Agriculture’s Friendly Egg-laying System Definition and Guidelines (雞蛋友善生產系統定義及指南) to establish model farms, he said.
Coop upgrades should be a decade-long project, with rolling reviews on existing regulations, such as the Regulation on Animal Husbandry Registration (畜禽飼養登記管理辦法), Chu said.
This would remove roadblocks to upgrading the poultry industry, and help encourage and subsidize egg farmers to transition to an animal-friendly production model, he said.
The government should also amend the Standards for Primary Facilities at Husbandry Farms (畜牧場主要設施設置標準) to prohibit the building of new battery cages and demand that farmers comply with the mid-to-long term upgrade project to gradually phase out such cages, he said.
Chu also urged the government to step up education and research into animal-friendly husbandry and to encourage more young people to join the industry.
Citing 2021 statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organization, Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan member Tsun Fang-chu (寸舫筑) said that Taiwan’s annual average egg production per hen, at 190, or 52 percent, was lower than the global average of 202.
Despite raising more chickens, the poultry industry produced fewer eggs, Tsun said, adding that pollution by the industry is a problem.
More than 60 percent of farmers older than 60 were unable to keep up with the industry’s modernization, she said.
Despite the government providing NT$1.05 billion (US$34.29 million) in subsidies, only 200, or one-10th, of all coops could be upgraded, Lin said, adding that subsidies for lagging chicken-raising systems suggest government negligence.
Subsidies should be given out to farms that follow the council’s standards, with every egg-laying hen having 750m2 of space to move in, Lin said.
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