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The Free Range Fiddle

Sunday 26 June  2005 

Produced by Helen Thomas

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Program Transcript

Helen Thomas: Here's a question: When is an egg not just an egg?

When it comes from out on the range.

Despite all the pretty pictures on those egg cartons in the supermarket with happy hens roaming lush green paddocks, Australia's free range is not a happy place.

And its producers are a divided flock.

They argue about farm management and hen husbandry, and are angry that there's no legal definition of what the term 'free range' actually means.

But many do agree on one disturbing claim: half the free-range eggs sold in this country might actually come from other productions: hens kept in cages or barns.

In other words, they're ring-ins, substituted for genuine free range eggs and sold for sometimes triple the price.

Welcome to Background Briefing; I'm Helen Thomas.

Ivy Inwood: We reckon half the eggs sold in Australia come from other systems and not the genuine free-range systems.

Helen Thomas: So half the eggs that are being marketed to us, the consumer, as free-range, aren't?

Ivy Inwood: Yes, no problem at all.

Helen Thomas: Ivy Inwood is widely regarded as the Queen of Australia's free-range industry, respected even by those who disagree with her. With her husband Roy, she runs Country Range Farming, with 100,000 hens split into flocks across five organic properties in Queensland. Most are free-range, but the Inwoods also have a small number of hens in cages.

Many of Australia's major producers run properties with mixed systems: hens laying in cages, as well as in barns, and free-range set-ups.

But Ivy Inwood says the current demand for free-range, and the over-production of eggs from barns and cages, means that thousands of eggs are being falsely labelled 'free range' and sold for premium prices. She says she's seen it happen with caged eggs, and has sources that say it occurs with barn-laid as well.
Ivy Inwood: I've seen it happen on one grading floor, yes. The cartons were free-range, and they just changed them from caged to free-range.
Helen Thomas: So you definitely knew those eggs came from the caged system on that property?

Ivy Inwood: Yes. Because they had no other system. When they go out marketing, their clients ask them for free-range or barn, 'Yes, I can supply that', they say. So they go home and just set up their own carton, and then when the orders come in, they just change the cartons in the grading machine. When I've spoken to these people they say, 'Well, my market demands it and I can't get free-range eggs, and my market needs them so I just do it'."Well we're doing it the genuine way, the old-fashioned way, gathering eggs by hand and we're not collecting off of a big belt-conveyor system..."

Helen Thomas: Sitting around the kitchen table at their main property at Oakey, west of Toowoomba, Ivy and Roy Inwood say they've tried to get legislation to prevent egg substitution. Especially given the fact that we pay so much for free-range eggs.

Ivy Inwood: What do you reckon, Roy? The cost of free-range, why we get it?

Roy Inwood: Well we're doing it the genuine way, the old-fashioned way, gathering eggs by hand and we're not collecting off of a big belt-conveyor system, just plucking eggs off as they roll out the other end. We don't believe that that's in the best interests of the hen, she likes to lay in a nest, and that takes a little bit more time to go round gathering eggs in the baskets, but I think that that's what the general public expect, and they're getting the free-range egg they think is coming from a nest and not off a belt or out of a big barn system.

Helen Thomas: But the Inwoods believe concerns about the welfare of battery hens has overshadowed other issues.

Ivy Inwood: We have tried to get legislation, we tried through the Welfare Act, we tried to get it under the Code of Practice for the Welfare of Poultry No.4, and all they were interested in was writing up the codes to get the CAGE people, and as I've said to our Minister, and all his underlings, 'All you did was worry about the cages, you didn't worry about the other two systems that you wanted us to go into, we've got no protection whatsoever in there from anyone calling anything what they like.' And I can't see in the foreseeable future that we're going to get any protection, because they just don't seem to want to do anything for the alternative systems.

Helen Thomas: The Inwoods' complaints have a resonance with many of Australia's smaller free-range producers.

Phil Westwood is an independent auditor who does work for the Australian Egg Corporation Limited.

Based in south-east Victoria, he's also a 'free ranger', and like his northern counterparts, insists substitution is a big problem. He says he knows of farms that put free-range hens at the front of the property for everyone to see, while the majority of their birds are in cages out back.

Phil Westwood: Yes, that's true. I understand that's a fairly common practice. There's one farm I know of that actually does that. They probably have 100 chooks, 200 chooks out the front, but they've got several thousand in the shed down the back.

Helen Thomas: But how can this happen? How can we be in a situation where there's just not any regulation that's mandatory, that stops that practice happening?

Phil Westwood: Yes, it is very strange, and it really will only be addressed once the Federal Government works out some real definition of what free-range is. Because at the moment it's just open go.

Helen Thomas: What's the worst example you've seen of this?
Phil Westwood: The worst ones are the sort of operations that really are simply barn-laid, and market themselves as free-range, or the ones that actually are cage eggs. And there are some farms that we understand that go around some of the Farmers' Markets in particular, that have virtually no chooks. They might have 20 chooks or so, but they're selling hundreds of dozens of eggs each week, and they're just buying them from the local cage farm, packaging them, and going along to Farmers' Markets and passing them off as free-range eggs and selling them for $6 or $8 a dozen.
Helen Thomas: Yes, but again, it's almost impossible to believe, because we're supposed to have truth in labelling laws in this country, and I guess people listening this morning would think, 'Well, is it up to us: is it up to all of us to go to the ACCC and say 'Hey, we believe there's something shonky going on here?'

Phil Westwood: Yes, but it really will be difficult without a legal definition, that's the stumbling block. Until there is a definition, what is a free-range egg, the argument can be 'Well, what is it?' If the cook can see the sun or see grass from outside a cage, some producers would say that's free-range.

Helen Thomas: This makes it hard for our small free-range operators. Just part of Australia's massive egg industry, worth more than $286-million a year.

Phil Westwood.

Ivy Inwood, in fact, says half the eggs sold in Australia as free-range, aren't.Phil Westwood: Well, as most of the free-range farms are fairly small, they are susceptible to competition from people who are selling eggs that are not free-range in direct competition with them. It is a significant issue for some producers when people can actually go and buy cage eggs, and then put them in containers with a free-range label on them and sell them either on the side of the road, or at markets. I mean, every market in Victoria has stalls selling eggs, and they say they're free-range. But in many cases they're not.

Helen Thomas: Ivy Inwood, in fact, says half the eggs sold in Australia as free-range, aren't.

Phil Westwood: Yes, I would agree with that. Yes.

Helen Thomas: But how has it got to this? I mean, how can that be happening?

Phil Westwood: Because people make money out of doing it. Why would you have chooks if you can make as much money, if not more, by just going along to a cage farm, buying boxes of eggs, re-packing them, and selling them?

Helen Thomas: But how is it that there's no-one actually overseeing this, if it stops that happening?

Phil Westwood: Because basically it's a voluntary system. Organisations like our association, the (Victorian) Free Range Farmers Association, obviously don't allow that to happen with our members, and we go to great lengths to make sure that the farms are legitimate. But there is no compulsion to belong to an association like ours. Anyone can set up a farm and claim they're selling free-range eggs, and there's no-one to stop them. There is no process at this stage, to control them.

Helen Thomas: Westwood is one of the auditors trying to keep track of the quality of the eggs we eat. But officially speaking, he doesn't keep tabs on the various production systems of the farms he visits, or animal welfare matters.

You can tell you do a bit of driving in here, Phil.

Phil Westwood: Oh yes, this is my office.

Helen Thomas: Well look, as an auditor, you probably do quite a bit of driving. What does that involve?

Phil Westwood: Well, many of the farms are quite widespread, so there is a fair bit of driving involved. It might take a couple of hours to get to a farm. I'd probably do certainly 1,000 kilometres a week and probably more some weeks.

Helen Thomas: And when you get to a farm, what specifically are you there to audit?

Phil Westwood: Well the auditing process, you're really checking through the paper trail. You're making sure that the things that the farm says they're doing, they are actually doing. There's a record showing what's been done.

Helen Thomas: Like what sort of things, what are important?

Phil Westwood: Temperature of the eggs, you're looking for cool-room temperature logs, so that you can see that the eggs have been stored correctly. You're looking at egg collection sheets so you can see that the eggs are collected on a regular basis. And the grading process, that the machine is checked regularly. It really is looking at the paper trail as far as the auditing is concerned.

Helen Thomas: And what about the actual production process itself? I mean, if a farm says it's free-range, if a farm's working with caged hens or barn-based hens, are you looking at that too?

Phil Westwood: No, we're not looking at the production system on the farm, we're purely looking at the quality of the eggs that are produced. So that the type of production system on the farm is irrelevant for the Quality Assured program.

Helen Thomas: This auditor drives thousands of kilometres a month, visiting Victoria's various egg producers. But the afternoon we meet, he's dropping off some of his own eggs at The Fruit Plaza, in Pakenham.

Here we are in the egg corner.

Phil Westwood: Yes. This is the egg corner. There are local eggs, cage eggs, that are sold at $2 a dozen, and they sell very well. How many boxes of these $2 eggs do you sell, Andrew, each week? Dozens of them.

Andrew: Yes, twenty. Fifteen-dozen in a box. Twenty-two I think we've done this week.

Helen Thomas: What about Phil's eggs? How many of them do you sell?

Andrew: Two, about two boxes, yes. They're good ones, though.

Phil Westwood: That's 30-dozen.

Helen Thomas: So there's a huge difference, isn't there, just because of the cost.

Phil Westwood: Because of the price, yes. The price difference I mean, the difference between $2 and $5 is the price differential.

Helen Thomas: Free-range egg producer and auditor, Phil Westwood.

Now, the general guidelines that do exist for Australia's egg production systems indicate free-range eggs are laid by hens:

Reader: '...housed in sheds (that) have access to an outdoor range'.

Helen Thomas: The current Model Code of Practice for the Welfare of Animals, as it relates to 'Domestic Poultry', goes on to suggest that:

Reader: '...outdoor range should be sited and managed to avoid muddy or unsuitable conditions.

'All birds, when fully feathered, must have ready access through openings to the outdoor range during daylight hours for a minimum of eight hours a day.

'Birds on the range must have ready access to shaded areas and shelter from rain, and windbreaks should be provided in exposed areas.'

Helen Thomas: The Code also instructs:

Reader: '... every reasonable effort must be made to provide protection from predators at all times.'

Helen Thomas: But there's no system of compliance underpinning these recommendations from the Primary Industries Standing Committee, hence, no real way of enforcing them.

Even so, free range eggs are the superior 'niche' of this industry: they cost more and are widely believed to be better for us, because they come from 'happier hens'.

Yet several serious points of contention split this high end.

How many hens should roam in one flock? How big should the doors of their sheds be, to ensure they actually go outside on a regular daily basis? How should the eggs be collected? Should they be washed before being packed into cartons, and perhaps most contentiously, should free-range hens have their beaks trimmed?

Australia's Queen of the Range' believes setting mandatory regulations for egg producers should be a Federal government priority.

"We like our coloured eggshells. The reason why there are no white chooks running around usually on free-range, is that no-one wants to buy white eggs. We perceive they're not as healthy in Australia. It's totally erroneous..."Ivy Inwood: The Federal Government should be jumping in here. They're pretty good at making lots of other rules and enforcing them, and when the State Ministers meet, which is now called PIMC, Primary Industries Ministerial Council, and it is chaired by the Federal Minister for Agriculture, this is where it should all be made at these meetings. The cage industry decisions were made at these meetings, they make it on mulesing, they make it on any other thing, but we cannot get this done. The welfare movement, for some unknown reason, does not come in and help us. I've tried to approach Animal Liberationists, I've tried the Welfare groups in all States, and no one sort of wants to back us to get any rules in place, to what genuine free-range is.

Helen Thomas: Ivy Inwood, in Queensland.

Now the Federal Government hasn't actually jumped at the chance to discuss these issues with us. Indeed, Senator Richard Colbeck, who's now in charge of the so-called 'egg portfolio', declined our invitation to take part in the show.

But it's knowing the birds that lay some of the 3-billion eggs we eat every year that really lies at the heart of this discussion.

Meg Miller edits the magazine 'Australasian Poultry', and she understands the significance of free-range for consumers.

Meg Miller: They buy the eggs in good faith, believing that the management system includes non-debeaked birds, it includes chickens that have been trained to go out on the range from the time they were little chicks, it includes the use of no antibiotics, no artificial yolk colourings, pasture management, sustainability, a number of daylight hours, predator proofing, look it's quite a demanding, rigorous management schedule, and it's not there by accident.Helen Thomas: There's even concern about the breed of hen being used on the range.

The majority are imported families such as Is Brown, Hy-line and Hisex, all boasting red plumage and renowned as high producers.

Meg Miller: I usually talk about them as elite athletes, it's a great parallel to draw with them, because they're bred for really high performance, they don't have the flexibility of the older fashioned strains of poultry. The red hens lay a tinted to brown egg, and that's the demand in Australia. We like our coloured eggshells. The reason why there are no white chooks running around usually on free-range, is that no-one wants to buy white eggs. We perceive they're not as healthy in Australia. It's totally erroneous, but it's a fad and a fashion and the market is for brown eggs. So that's our red or brown chooks.

Helen Thomas: So the red chooks come from Europe?

Meg Miller: They hail from Europe or America. There's probably three or four strains, I'm not certain, all came out in the 1990s, took a bit of adjustment. They didn't fit in immediately. To my knowledge they haven't been bred for the outdoor situation, and we may be unique in Australia in that we're taking a hen that was bred for intensive farming and saying 'Cope with the weather, cope with the intricacies of outdoor living'. And they do terrifically, if you maintain your pasture, and you maintain the management. But they're not as large-bodied or as vigorous as the Australian-generated layers. And you could have a red one, a black one, or a white one.

And look, I've heard of some of the smaller free-range producers, of actually going to crosses of the old local stocks, because they felt they withstood the weather pressures better than the commercial birds.

Helen Thomas: Clearly, there's more to free-ranging than most of us realise in fact it seems chickens have to be trained to do it.

Meg Miller: Opening the doors of a shed and saying, 'Out you go, girls!' is simply not real free-range. Hens came from jungle fowl, they lived in really small groups, and they base their social network on recognition. So they didn't ever go through flocks of unknown chooks, they didn't venture very far, because they needed the assurance of protection. Because chooks have got no ability to protect themselves from predators. So if they're running in big groups, it's a stress. And what you often find is that many free-range operations are small, because it's more successful. The hens I guess are more confident, and therefore they lay better.

Helen Thomas: But having seen a few farms now, I mean certainly up in Toowoomba, Ivy Inwood has thousands of chooks zooming around together, and they seem quite happy. I mean, how do you judge a happy hen?

Meg Miller: Chooks will lay under quite adverse conditions, but they'll also practice probably antisocial behaviour, and part of the antisocial behaviour may be feather pecking. If you've got hens that are shy, wary, and unwilling to go out of their shed into the paddock, they'll probably feather-peck each other, because they'll be all congregating closely together. The sign that the chooks are out and adventurously grazing, which is what we want, but which isn't natural to chooks, is fantastic. I would say Ivy has worked out the formula for success, so she probably gets her chickens very young, she educates them from an early age, to going out and to being vigorous I guess, and adventurous.

Helen Thomas: Meg Miller, editor of 'Australasian Poultry', talking to us in her happily cluttered office in Seymour, central Victoria.

Now it might sound innocuous, but feather-pecking can become quite a violent activity, one that can lead to cannibalism. It certainly leads to one of the great points of divide for farmers.
Many free-rangers with flocks of several thousand argue the best way to manage the birds is to trim their peaks at an early age. But other producers, the Inwoods included, who manage flocks of up to 2500, vehemently disagree. They say that beak trimming, or 'de-beaking', is nothing less than mutilation and affects a hen's ability to range freely.
Ron and Dianne Moore became free-range farmers about a decade ago when they retired from suburban Melbourne to a 20 acre property in Labertouche, south-eastern Victoria.

Ron Moore: I see the biggest issue is truth in labelling. Victoria was deregulated in 1994. Prior to that, all egg production in Victoria was controlled by the Egg Board, and in those days, the Egg Board had a specification for free-range. One of the issues in that specification, you could not beak trim your birds, and you did not have them more than a certain stock in density, so you did not need to beak trim them. What's happening now is the consumer is becoming more welfare-aware. So the big cage farms and the new big producers, are coming into the market, but they're compromising welfare before they start, because free-range, barn-laid, and organic are all about paying a premium. The bottom line is always 'You've got to make a dollar'.

Helen Thomas: Ron and Dianne Moore are now two of Australia's best-known small free-rangers, managing several flocks of 160 hens each, and doing the weekly rounds of farmers' markets to sell their produce. They also see egg substitution as a problem.

Ron Moore: It's all about the cage people are doing it tough, so the easiest thing is just to shove a few in a free-range box and bring in an extra couple of dollars a dozen.

Dianne Moore: And they get the premium price. It's all about money.

Ron Moore: And lack of regulation and definition.

Helen Thomas: What do you think we the consumer are willing to pay for? Is it about the quality of the egg in the end? Or is it about the welfare issues behind the egg? Or is it a combination of things?

Dianne Moore: It's a combination of welfare, and people know the difference. They really do know the difference.

Ron Moore: There is another side to this. We'll take every egg we've produced since Tuesday to our Farmers Markets this Saturday, the one down near Southland this week, then we're at the Collingwood Children's Farm, which is a lovely big market, but they are all genuine only farm produce. And you're talking to people about what you're producing. They say, 'Oh we love your eggs, and they're so much better', and so on. The only thing we can claim, and we can't claim there's any change in nutritional value, but we can claim they're all fresh, they're all this week. So you're paying for animal welfare, but by buying from people like us at Farmers Markets, genuine produce, only in Farmers Markets, you're buying fresh, it's the last couple of days.

Helen Thomas: In a sense, the Moores are purists, members of Victoria's Free Range Farmers group, and the Free Range Egg and Poultry Association of Australia Incorporated. They collect their eggs by hand every day, seven days a week, from the small huts their hens live and lay in. They also buy their chicks when they're just a day old and train them to range, an operation that starts in an unusual nursery.

Dianne Moore: This is the babies' area here. That tree there, the wide-spreading (one), is a kangaroo apple, when the little babies come out, they hide under there. See, we have a covered area there, that when they're really tiny, because they go out about three weeks, so hawks, nothing can get them, and they stay there for a couple of weeks, and they move into the second area, and they come out here.

Helen Thomas: Right. And they've got the radio on to acclimatise them to noise and voices.

Dianne Moore: They don't hear noise, really.

Helen Thomas: Oh, look. (cheeping)

Dianne Moore: See they're all learning to roost.

Helen Thomas: So what's on the floor here?

Ron Moore: Wood shavings.

Helen Thomas: Wood shavings?

Ron Moore: Cleaned wood shavings. Now there's 250 there, that ring was half that size when they arrived last week on the Tuesday.

Helen Thomas: So you've got them enclosed in a little plastic ring.

Ron Moore: To keep them warm whilst the heater's on.

Helen Thomas: So they're only about a week old?

Dianne Moore: Ten days.

Helen Thomas: And what breed of - ?

Ron Moore: These are Isa Browns, and they came from Tamworth in New South Wales. We get them delivered down by the same time as a big cage farm in the area is getting its delivery of chicks. We get a much better hen, because we rear them from day-old. They have all their vaccinations between now and 12 weeks. They're used to us, they're used our feed. When they came a week ago, they were little tiny balls the size of an egg, and you can see now, this ring will come out - this heater started at 32, it's now down to 25, we drop it a degree a day. By Friday, Saturday, this ring will be taken out, and they'll have all this room. By next week, that port-hole will be open, and they'll have the second room where they've got perches and that, and by the fourth week they'll be fully feathered and they'll be ranging outside through the netted area.

Helen Thomas: Once they make it to the Big Outdoors, the Moores have designed a simple, environmentally savvy scenario for them to roam.

A sign: Moore Brown Eggs


Ron Moore describes the set-up as we drive around the property on his large farm bike.

Ron Moore: This fence is an English free-range fencing, it's got a stainless steel wire that you can't see, for each horizontal strand. We don't have to lock our chooks up at night. The fox will get a hell of a zap if he touches that, because it's run off the cattle fence. Our sheds are movable, I move them every fortnight with the tractor.

Helen Thomas: So what's in there, they're roosting in there?

Ron Moore: Yes, there's a rooster in there. Now see down the right-hand end there's a hopper? That's their feed. Now, we mix our own feed here, because we're small enough to do it, so they've got one bin of wheat and they've got another bin of protein concentrate, which is the various vegetable matters, and the third one's got their shell grit in. They lay all their eggs in the layer boxes down this end, and what you do with the layer boxes, you try to keep them on the non-sun side. And they're very organised, these chooks. There you are, they're talking to you now.

They'll all go in at night, at dusk and they'll all perch in there. They've got two lots of water there, and their layer boxes have got wood shavings in them. You can see them looking at us under the trees. And this is what we are against in beak-trimming birds. How can a chook out there be picking up what's in the ground there, worms and grits and things like that if it's got half its beak missing?

Helen Thomas: So you would say they need that little hook on the end of the beak?

Ron Moore: I would say they need the lot. Why do it? You're taking away a bit of their natural instinct, and that's the difference between extensive free-range and intensive.

Helen Thomas: The difference Ron Moore's just outlined is significant. Yet he and his wife prove that at the moment, both styles of production coexist in Australia.

Just last month, the Australian Egg Corporation accredited the Moore's 'Moore Brown Eggs" under the 'Egg Corp Assured' program, its new quality assurance scheme.

Wire chickens at Moore Brown Eggs
Wire chickens on a gate at Moore Brown Eggs


The only other producer to earn this national gong is Greeneggs, a much larger free-range producer in Victoria.

But the two farms are a world apart.

Shelley Greene: We're in Western Victoria, so we're in the lower Wimmera as far as the district is concerned. If the woolshed wasn't there, you could see the Grampians, which is a national park in Western Victoria. We call ourselves the foothills of the Grampians, they're only 15 minutes away out there. So we're in between the very productive cereal growing area of the Wimmera region, this is hilly country before you get down to the flat, very rich Western District country.

"Well, what you've got here is a Range Harvester Deep Litter Automatic Nesting System"Helen Thomas: Shelley and Alan Green oversee 18,000 birds, housed in three large sheds. But not just any old shed; these hens live in the most contemporary of structures. Soft, all-weather 'skins' cover the sides, and a conveyor belt system collects thousands of eggs every day.

Alan Green: Well, what you've got here is a Range Harvester Deep Litter Automatic Nesting System. The greatest part of about this is that the actual litter in the nest is exactly the same as the litter on the floor. Rice-hulls - and obviously in the nest it's beautifully clean, it's cleaned by the harvester every day it travels. The challenge in our industry is to minimalise floor eggs, eggs being laid on the floor. The enviornment is that the birds want to nestle down on the ground. So we're providing a nest system that's very similar to the ground, only it's a bit darker, it's a bit more personal, and we're getting results now, our latest flock's running at 1.2% for eggs and for us, we think that's brilliant. And that then leads you into another totally controversial issue, and that's washing eggs.

Helen Thomas: And some people say you don't wash them because it takes off the film that's protecting them, others say you have to wash them because you're going to put them in cartons.
Alan Green: Yes, and it gets back to me to this time span from when the egg leaves the producer, until it gets to the retailer and then it gets to the wholesaler. If you wash that egg, then all that time shortens up. We know ourselves that an egg shouldn't be washed. It's far better with its natural protection on it, but the consumer looks at an egg and sees a bit of dirt on it, and then has to decide in their own mind is that a free-range and therefore it's acceptable to have that, or is that a dirty egg? So more and more we are leading towards washing our eggs, and have just commenced washing some of our eggs. The big wholesalers all do wash eggs, and as a small producer, it's a big implication on our business to have to wash them, but we are now washing eggs, yes.
Helen Thomas: So, once they've laid the eggs, getting back to the nests themselves, how does the egg then get moved on the conveyor belt?

Shelley Greene: Well, this machine down the end there travels up and down all morning it just travels up and down, and it lifts the egg out of the nest and carries it over to the conveyor belt and then they're collected up in the egg room.

Helen Thomas: So, does that disturb any of the hens that might be sitting in there?

Shelley Greene: For a very short time. They go up on to a platform, and then they're deposited back into their nests.

Helen Thomas: Does that stress them at all?

Shelley Greene: No. Oh, the first few times they sort of think, 'What's happening?' And they sort of jump up. After a while, you just see them, it's like going up steps, they take a step up and then they get deposited back down and they'll continue whatever they're doing at that time.

Alan Green: This machine runs up and down this 82 metres of shed, and it's actually up and down here in 25 minutes. So in other words, every 25 minutes, these eggs are on the belt, and they egg collector is collecting this belt, it's doing a full lap of the shed every 20 minutes. These eggs are then collected, they're on to the palette and they're in that cold room within two hours.

Helen Thomas: As you can hear, this is intensive free-range farming. And unlike the Inwoods in Oakey and the Moores in Labertouche, the Greens' birds are beak-trimmed.

Alan Green: All we ask for is the hook taken off.

Helen Thomas: The hook on the top?

Alan Green: Just the hook at the end of the beak, and if you look at most of these birds here, we've had people come here and say 'You don't de-beak', but the reality is, we do, and the only reason we take that hook off the end of the beak, is to stop them destroying each other. We love our animals, but we're like everybody else; we're here for a commercial venture, we're here to make a living and survive. And these girls, because we've now got them in intensive areas, they have to survive. So really, de-beaking, or taking a hook off a beak, it's a commercial decision. If we didn't have to do it, we would rather not do it, but if we don't do it, it's been shown by many people that the girls (as in the chooks) start to get into each other. So it's commercial for us to do it to save them destroying themselves and therefore destroying us.

Helen Thomas: Alan and Shelley Greene, in one of their three very busy sheds at Great Western, in Victoria.

Helen Thomas: The Model Code of Practice for Domestic Poultry sets out guidelines for the management of our three systems of egg production: caged, barn-laid and free-range.

Yet these are far from national laws.

The Code's general recommendations are left to the States and Territories to work into their Animal Welfare Acts.

"I'm certainly comfortable that the vast, vast, vast majority of eggs are done in the correct way, and that there is a paper trail to prove it."But Meg Parkinson, Vice-President of the Victorian Farmers' Federation and head of its egg program, is happy with the current situation. A free-range egg producer herself, she works at the top end of town, in the Federation's office in Melbourne's Collins Street. And she disputes her colleagues' allegation that half the eggs labelled 'free-range' in Australia are substitutions.

Meg Parkinson: I have no proof of that at all, none at all.

Helen Thomas: Do you believe that the eggs being marketed as free-range, are in fact free-range?

Meg Parkinson: I believe there's a process in place to ensure that it's done correctly. Look, there will always be the odd person who plays the system, but I'd be surprised if it was in the sort of figures you're talking about, and I'm certainly comfortable that the vast, vast, vast majority of eggs are done in the correct way, and that there is a paper trail to prove it.

Helen Thomas: Well how can it be proved? I mean how does that paper trail work?

Meg Parkinson: Well basically, if we take eggs into a supermarket for example, the supplier of the eggs to the supermarket is a marketer of eggs, one of the marketing companies that came out of co-operatives a long time ago. And their suppliers to them, have to show how many eggs they have, how many birds they have and their lay rate. If that supplier to that marketer is only producing free-range, for example, then they know all those eggs are free-range, and they will know what the lay rate is and the eggs coming in. If the supplier has more than one production system, then the marketer will still know the number of birds that they have and the lay rate, and it would be most unusual for the number of eggs to go up. Usually they would go down. So if the number started rising, there would be real concern. And there is a requirement under Quality Assurance, and this is normal under all Quality Assurance, that when you are processing these products, the products that you have in small quantities, you either have to run them through your plant first, so they're done before the main product you do, or when you do the main product, you have to strip down your machinery and put through the smaller number.

Helen Thomas: So the default item here would be cage eggs?

Meg Parkinson: That's right. They would start running the plant and put the free-range eggs through, pack them, and then they would put in the cage eggs. And there is a paper trail to allow that. And I'm quite confident, certainly in Victoria, that that's what happens. For example, I've been to Farm Pride and I've seen that's what happens. And I went there without anyone knowing, without management knowing, and I was very comfortable with what they were doing.

Helen Thomas: Meg Parkinson, President of the Victorian Farmers Federation's Egg Program.

But Glenys Oogies, Executive Director of Animals Australia, says the egg industry has failed to live up to a promise it made to government a few years ago. She says the Model Code of Practice is a 'totally voluntary' document, and believes something tougher must be put in place.

Glenys Oogies: The only thing that can assist, I think, is a proper National Quality Assurance Program, and in fact the egg industry undertook, some five years ago, to do that, and they've largely totally failed to do that. They first rejected a very comprehensive Animal Welfare order that was put together, and I was involved in that agreed process, to put a detailed Quality Assurance Program together to assist welfare. They did not take that on board, they took a much more skeletal approach to it, and only provided some very basic requirements in their National Program, and as I understand it, only two producers so far, have undertaken it. So the industry, the egg industry and their leaders, have a lot to answer for in this. They could have taken a much greater stand, and still should, and must, in order to provide for both the welfare of animals as well as adequate labelling.

Helen Thomas: The activist also argues the Australian Egg Corporation's Quality Assurance Scheme isn't stringent enough.

Glenys Oogies: Not only do I believe it should be a mandatory system, the egg industry undertook in 1999 and 2000, to all of the Agriculture Ministers around Australia, that they would do this mandatory audit system. That is, they would assist with putting it together and they would ensure that the vast majority of their producers were under it. They have failed dismally to do that. That was part of a package of reforms that were put into place by the Ministers in 2000. And unfortunately, they simply have not held up their end of the bargain. I don't think the egg industry is doing themselves any good and it will come to pass before long, that they have actually undermined the credibility of their own industry.

Helen Thomas: The chooks will come home to roost, Glenys!

Glenys Oogies: The chooks will come home to roost, because the egg industry is not doing the right thing.

Helen Thomas: Well why, if in fact the Ministerial Committee ended this five or six years ago, why hasn't the Minister stepped in and said, 'Hey, how come it's not being done?'

Glenys Oogies: Well, I think that unfortunately the Ministers have moved on. They thought that the battery hen issue was done and dusted, and of course that took into account the other types of eggs as well. So I'm not at all pleased, and I for one will be going back to the Ministers and asking them to enforce the agreements that were made five years ago.

Helen Thomas: When will you do that?

Glenys Oogies: They have another meeting in October. The Primary Industry Ministerial Council, as it's called now, and I'll certainly be indicating to them, the failure, if you like, and the demonstrated failure of the industry to take this seriously.

Helen Thomas: Glenys Oogies, Executive Director of Animals Australia.

It's fair to say many Australians seem concerned about the eggs they're buying. Even a quick trip to a supermarket will reveal at least one or two shoppers staring at the vast array of eggs on sale. And reading the labels on the egg cartons can certainly be a challenge.

Dietician Meaghan Ramsey, from Nutrition Austrlaia, helps us run the gauntlet in a busy Coles in Sydney. Significantly, she says that in terms of nutrition, there's essentially no difference between eggs laid in cages, barns, and out on the range.

Meaghan Ramsey: Well, the best thing about eggs is the bio-availability of the different types of nutrients. Protein is particularly bio-available in eggs, the protein is very easily absorbed and processed by our bodies, so the protein's good. Also a range of different nutrients like Vitamin B12 for example, very easily absorbed in an egg. And again, there's not a great deal of difference in terms of Vitamin B12 content of free-range eggs versus the other styles of eggs.

Helen Thomas: So the hens may well be happier, but that doesn't necessarily mean the eggs are going to be healthier for us?

Meaghan Ramsey: No, that's correct.

Helen Thomas: We're looking at some caged eggs here. Vegetarian eggs.

Meaghan Ramsey: Well, yes.

Helen Thomas: So I guess they're on a vegetarian diet, no meat protein at all?

Meaghan Ramsey: That's right, and no fish, no animal or fish derivatives are in the feed of vegetarian eggs.

Helen Thomas: And does that mean that that egg, or that carton of eggs is necessarily going to be better for us?

Meaghan Ramsey: Not necessarily better, but it may contain a different range of nutrients. And I suppose again, it comes down to what nutrients you are seeking. I mean as a base level, eggs are fairly similar in terms of nutrition, but if they are fed particular types of feed, then certain nutrients will be elevated. So for example, probably the best example is laying hens that are fed marigold, and marigold is very high in the antioxidant Lutine, and so Lutine, which is very good for preventing macular degeneration, is what it's most been shown to do. Lutine is particularly high in those eggs that have been laid by hens that are fed marigold.

Helen Thomas: And so what about cartons that say 'More Omega 3' in the eggs?

Meaghan Ramsey: That means to me that the particular feed that those hens have been fed, are high in Omega 3 rich plant-based materials. So some things like linseed, or flax seed is particularly high in Omega 3, also soybeans, they tend to be the types of eggs that are high in the Omega 3.

Helen Thomas: There's one, two, three, four, five, six shelves full of eggs. We've got farm fresh eggs up there, they're caged eggs; we've got on the second shelf here, more caged eggs; and what about the gourmet free-range eggs? Now that's got a tick on it, which brings us to another thing. I mean there isn't really a national standard we can look for, is there? There's no logo saying 'These eggs adhere to a certain set of national standards'?

Meaghan Ramsey: Yes, and that's probably a big source of confusion for consumers, is that there may be State-based guidelines as to what is considered free-range, but there is no national standard at present.

Helen Thomas: Let's look at this: EcoEggs. In a very 'green' cardboard box. 'Certified free-range, antibiotic free and naturally richer'. Again, is that a genuine claim, or is it just a play on words?

Meaghan Ramsey: I actually think this is relatively genuine, because it says 'Certified free-range, antibiotic free' would mean that the poultry was not provided with any antibiotics, and 'naturally richer'. There's a little asterisk there that leads us to another statement that says 'At least three times as rich in Omega 3, B12 and Vitamin E, as ordinary eggs'. And the Food Standards Australia and New Zealand body would actually regulate that claim.

Helen Thomas: So they couldn't say that unless in fact it was true?

Meaghan Ramsey: They couldn't say that unless it was true, that's right.

Helen Thomas: It's a very serious label, this one.

Meaghan Ramsey: It's quite serious. We're looking at nutrition in one sense, and then we're looking at free range in another sense. There is a governing body for nutrient claims and nutrition labelling. There's no national body currently for the free range label, so it's based on a consumer understanding.

Helen Thomas: Meaghan Ramsey, a dietician working the egg aisle in an inner city Sydney supermarket.

"...for chickens there is actually no code put down by the industry sector or by governments with regard to free range and healthy, happy chickens"Petar Johnson also agrees there should be a national standard that assures customers of the eggs' system of production. He's President of the Australian Environmental Labelling Association.

Petar Johnson: It's an emerging field. The frameworks that they're talking about at the moment seem to be Codes of Practice for the most dangerous issues, and you'd be aware of the sheep export industry with regard to live sheep exports. On a broad environmental scale, there's actually no codes of good environmental practice for distinct industries. So for chickens there is actually no code put down by the industry sector or by governments with regard to free range and healthy, happy chickens. There are certain guidelines, like the RSPCA will devlop good practice guidelines for eggs, and barn-laid eggs, there'll be some voluntary standards put in place, but on a broad, whole-of-industry nature, there really isn't those standards or codes.

Helen Thomas: Intriguingly, Johnson suggests it could well be the complexities of these issues that's slowing progress. The Canberra-based lobbyist says the confusion comes with the environmental impact of the territory.

Petar Johnson: You've got industries that are having a direct impact on the natural environment, and that impact will vary. It will be water use, it'll be soil quality, it'll be issues associated with the humane treatment of animals, it'll be issues associated with getting rid of carcases and rubbish in the actual farm lot. There'll be issues associated with possibly residues within the farmland, what it may have been used for previously. To integrate all of those factors is quite a complex research initiative, and unfortunately to date, that research hasn't been done. Not only for eggs, but for beef, for grains and many other raw products.

The tricky thing comes along when you compare, well, growing eggs, or hens, and producing eggs in South Australia, and I'm using 100 litres of water per kilo of eggs. Well than 100 litres of water in South Australia is quite different to using 100 litres in Tasmania where water is much more freely available and it can be tolerated within those natural systems. So when we're extracting it from natural systems, it actually doesn't do the level of damage that it would say, in a South Australian situation.

Consumers want to know, 'Is this egg humane to the bird? Is this egg doing less damage to the Australian environment?' And instead, some farmers are presenting very minimal information, very restricted information of maybe a single environmental attribute that seems positive, and neglecting the full picture. They don't present that to the market, or alternatively they're making implications, saying, 'Look, we have an environmental management system', we track this stuff, but actually can't prove that they're environmentally preferable to other eggs. So that complexity is fundamental to why this research hasn't been done in Australia.

Helen Thomas: Petar Johnson, President of the Australian Environmental Labelling Association.

Overseeing our egg industry is the Australian Egg Corporation. James Kellaway is its Sydney-based Managing Director, quick to tackle the issues devilling his product, especially truth in labelling.
James Kellaway: What is not an issue is the contravention of truth in labelling. What is an issue is to ensure that we do have truth in labelling. That legislation's in place through the Food Standards Code, we also have the Trade Practices Act for consumers to consider as a default position if they want to pursue that if they're concerned with a product. But at the end of the day, consumers should either follow through with the Trade Practices Act, which they can do, or they should contact the producer of the egg, because all eggs are branded or labelled as such, there's contact details there.
Helen Thomas: But James, I guess one of the most disturbing things for you, in your position here, is the fact that one of your major free-range producers, Ivy Inwood, up in Queensland, she makes the claim that half the eggs labelled, or marketed as free-range in this country, aren't, they're substitutions.

James Kellaway: Well look, that's a big statement, and let's actually see what the results of that statement are, and then address it. I suppose we view truth in labelling the way that any other food manufacturer would, for example, the can of tuna you buy: how do you know it's dolphin free, or dolphin friendly? Well, the label's there, so you assume that it is. If you don't think it is, you contact the manufacturer of that tuna. If you're not satisfied there, you go to the Trade Practices Act and use that tool through the ACCC. In terms of egg producers who consider that there might be a product out there that is not labelled truthfully, I'd like to know about it, because I'd like to ensure that the systems are in place where we can always advance that and ensure that there is that truth in labelling.

Helen Thomas: Kellaway is keen to push the Corporation's new 'Egg Corp Assured', a voluntary scheme that addresses food safety, bio-security and egg quality. But he argues against a mandatory compliance system.

James Kellaway: Well at this stage we're wanting to guarantee some issues associated with food safety, the health of the bird, certainly welfare, environmental issues, in terms of the way the product's being raised. But we want to add other avenues onto that, such as truth in labelling eventually, product quality in terms of to ensure the product itself is consistent with the viscosity of the albumen or the white, the yolk colour etc., a whole range of quality and also production issues that consumers either have, or we feel consumers may have as they become more educated about food.

"A regulatory environment does not work. What the industry does want to drive through is self-regulation"Helen Thomas: But James, isn't one of the problems with this, it's a voluntary scheme, and this is another consistent criticism that we've heard through free-range producers, big and small, that there's no national accreditation system. To be more specific, there's no national legal definition of what free-range really means.

James Kellaway: Well, there's no compulsory enforcement, and what we don't want to do is have policemen out on farms because we know that does not work. A regulatory environment does not work. What the industry does want to drive through is self-regulation. But the beauty about that is the consumer will decide. If the consumer sees a product has been Egg Corp Assured, through some logo or trademark mechanism, then that consumer has the freedom of choice to say 'OK, I'm going to buy this product at this price point, with these guarantees', or 'I'm going to buy this product at this price point with maybe different guarantees, or no guarantees'. The consumer has freedom of choice in that regard.

Helen Thomas: James Kellaway, Managing Director of the Australian Egg Corporation.

Ivy Inwood: They're friendly old girls. As I said, a chook...when she's singing, she's happy.

Helen Thomas: So they're singing?

Ivy Inwood: Yes, they're singing. They're just all happy. It's like a mob of people sitting together laughing, having a chat...see how they're just following him? Wherever he goes they follow.

Roy Inwood: And when they're singing like that, they're happy, contented and if they're dead quiet, well, yes there's something wrong.

Ivy Inwood: They're not happy, and you know there's something, so you've got to find it. But they're all very happy at the moment.

Helen Thomas: Obviously, free-range egg farming is a complex life. Yet for Ivy and Roy Inwood, Queensland's organic free-rangers, it's a life worth fighting for. And it's just part of the reason the issue of egg substitution is so important to Australia's Queen of the Range.

Ivy Inwood: We have a shortage of genuine free-range eggs, and we need genuine suppliers.

Helen Thomas: Why do you care so much? I mean, is it because you are losing money through this substitution occurring, or is it broader than that?

Ivy Inwood: No, it's an ethical thing with me. I believe that the public are paying for an article. You know, if I go in and I buy a pound of butter and it's got something else in it, then why am I being charged for something that's not a pure article? The public has to get what they're paying for. People perceive and have a perceiving of what free-range is, what cage is, and what barn is. And that's what they go and look for and that's what they pay for.

Helen Thomas: Background Briefing's team behind-the-scenes includes Production Co-ordinator Linda McGinnis; Technical Producer, Mark Don, and Webmaster, Gordon Blair.

Our Executive Producer is Kirsten Garrett.

I'm Helen Thomas and you're listening to ABC Radio National.
 
 
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