Germany: more and more organic eggs from factory farming

The size of poultry houses for organic laying hens has once again become an issue in the German media: there is an increasing trend to big poultry houses. It's not possible to see where this will lead because the new EU Organic Regulation approves the current practice in Germany and a number of other EU countries of keeping 30,000 and more organic hens in one poultry house. When consumers buy their eggs they have no information regarding the size of a particular poultry house.

The discussion began this time with a  report by the  Brandenburg broadcaster rbb. It stated that in Brandenburg 90 percent of organic laying hens live in large-scale facilities with 30,000 and more birds. It named two farms that supply Aldi and Lidl with organic eggs. rbb examined in detail the legal background that permits this kind of factory farming. The crucial question is: When is a  hen house a hen house?

Building, poultry house or compartment?

The still applicable EU Organic Regulation stipulates that what in the original English text is called a poultry house is permitted to be occupied by a  maximum of 3,000 hens. However, it does not define precisely what a poultry house is and whether several poultry houses can be accommodated in one building. In 2001, the organic control authorities in Germany's federal states agreed in their organic organisation Länderarbeitsgemeinschaft Ökologischer Landbau (LÖK) on the following interpretation: ”We understand the term ‚poultry house’ in the Regulation to mean a building that is a single closed unit regarding all functions and facilities for keeping poultry.“

According to this (more detailed) definition, several 'houses', each with 3.000 hens, would be permissible under one roof, but they would have to be separated from each other by walls and each have its own facilites for feeding and removal of waste. This applied until the beginning of 2007. Then the LÖK decided that separate facilites were no longer needed. It said that it was sufficient to separate the poultry houses from each other by menas of „robust walls (for example, timber walls) that prevented visual contact with the neighbouring houses.“ Thus an independent poultry house became a compartment for 3,000 hens. This decision saved the converted farms at that time from expensive building work and led to organic poultry houses with 30,000 and more hens.

Concern about a note in the minutes

Matthias Rackwitz from Brandenburg complained to the EU in legal proceeding lasting several years about this interpretation of the EU Organic Regulation. The Commission took the stance at the time that in the EU Organic Regulation ”placing more than one poultry house in a single building is not forbidden, and it is not prescibed what is to be regarded within a building as suitable separation between these poultry houses.“ In short, the EU Commission sees no readon to contest the German interpretation of the Organic Regulation.

This is why one sentence in the minutes of the last meeting of the EU committee for organic agriculture caused worry in the industry. Under point 11, Any other Businesss, it said: „The Commission stated that in the current Regulation the term 'poultry house' is to be understood to mean a ”building for poultry“, with an upper limit of 3,000 hens per building.“ The reaction of the Berlin Tagesspiegel : ”EU intends to to reduce the size of large-scale poultry houses in Germany.“

Industrial organic egg propducers have got their way

Worried by this minute, the federal Ministry of Agriculture enquired in Brussels what this minute actually means and said: „From our communication with the EU Commission we have established that the practice adopted in Germany on the basis of current legislation is, from the viewpoint of the Commission, in compliance with the requirements contained in the Regulation. “ The organic umbrella organisation BÖLW wrote: „The position of the EU Commission has no direct force in law. It is a non-binding legal opinion.“ The Directorate General Agriculture DG Agri of the EU Commission replied to organic-market.info, saying that the exchange concerning the definition of a poultry house referred to what producers would have to take into account when constructing new buildings.

The Commission repeated its standpoint of 2014, namely that the current Regulation can be interpreted in different ways, and it drew attention to the fact that the new Regulation will ensure clarity from 2021: it states that it is permitted to divide a poultry house into several compartments, each of which can accommodate a maximum of 3000 chickens. In other words, in the new version of the EU Organic Regulation the view of the industrial organic egg producers has prevailed. BÖLW now hopes that, as the Commission designs the new Regulation, it will shorten the current 350m chicken run to 150 metres. This would automatically lead to limiting a poultry house to a maximum of four times 3,000 birds, BÖLW writes. 12,000 hens per poultry house is the upper limit that Naturland has set itself; the other associations are much lower, with 6,000 or 3,000.

Where does my egg come from? Consumers often have no idea, even in the case of organic

The issue of disputed legal definitions has a disturbing outcome for consumers. When they buy an organic egg they have no way of knowing how big the poultry house is where the egg was laid. You often find idyllic pictures on the packaging in the supermarklets but what you don't find is information about the size of the producer of the eggs. The number stamped on the egg doesn't help either because in the KAT register (controlled alternative animal keeping) a farm with many poultry house compartments under one roof is given only one number. Only farms that have constructed separate poultry houses have been given a number for each house (as the LÖK wanted in 2001). So the recommendation of the Brandenburg Consumer Centre is: „If you want to avoid factory farming, convert to direct marketing or the products from organic farming associations with more stringent animal-keeping criteria.“