The end of the grinding of male chicks at birth in the laying hen sector in France is becoming clearer. According to a decree published on Sunday February 6 in the Official Journal, the government gives hatcheries until the end of 2022 to change their practice and stop eliminating these chicks at birth, without interest from an economic point of view since they do not lay . It is estimated that around 50 million chicks are killed each year in France.
To comply with the law, hatcheries must indeed be equipped with ovosexing machines, capable of determining the sex of the embryo and therefore of sorting males from females before birth. A method that also has a cost: between 47 and 50 million euros per year depending on the sector, which is in full discussion so that prices have the least possible impact on consumers.
This will cause additional adaptation costs for the industry, “2 to 4 cents for six eggs”estimates on franceinfo Étienne Gangneron, vice-president of the FNSEA in charge of organic farming.
According to the representative of the first agricultural union, “This poses a real problem for the competitiveness of our sector”. “There is state aid for the implementation of the process and the investment but there is not full support, so the hatcheries take risks in terms of investment”explains Etienne Gangneron.
Another point: keep the schedule by the end of 2022. The sector, which has been preparing for this measure since 2018, has one year to set up ovosexing. A real challenge underlines Philippe Juven, president of the egg interprofession: ” That goes in the direction of what we wanted to do. We are on new technologies. It requires adjustments in the practices and in the settings of all these machines. And so, it takes a bit of time.“
To make this investment profitable, hatcheries “will have to sell a little more expensive the chicks to the breeders and therefore, behind, the breeders have to sell the eggs a little more expensive”assures on his side Etienne Gangneron. “In other sectors, we have seen that the consumer only looks at the price”worries the one who is also an organic breeder and farmer in the Cher.
“If consumers do not want to bear this cost and they buy imported eggs from other countries that do not apply this method, we will have gained nothing for animal welfare”, explains the farmer. He says count on the“commitment of all links in the sector, including consumers”. The egg interprofession calls for a harmonization of European standards so as not to suffer from unfair competition.