FREE-RANGE chicken farmers in Cyprus will soon no longer be able to sell their eggs with ‘free-range’ labels.’ The farmers claim this will put them out of business since they cannot recoup their production costs if unable to sell their poultry products under the desirable and costlier ‘free-range label’.
On January 23 the government issued an order for all bird farmers to enclose their poultry out of fears they might be infected by migrating birds carrying the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu.
Under EU law, free-range farmers forced to bring their birds inside to protect them from infection are allowed to keep their free-range status for 12 weeks.
On Monday, the 12 weeks will have passed. Any eggs or meat produced from then on will have to be sold under the regular ‘barn’ label.
Free-range eggs fetch higher prices on the market because they are considered more natural and healthy than eggs hatched from birds that do not feed in the open.
An Agriculture Ministry official told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that although any eggs hatched on Monday would no longer be considered free-range, the last possible date on which a Cyprus egg could be sold on the market as ‘free-range’ is May 7 because eggs have a 21-day time span during which they can be sold as Grade A eggs.
Veterinarian and chicken farmer Savvas Petrides characterised the situation for free-range farmers in Cyprus as “catastrophic”, noting that if the government did not allow him to let out his chickens then he would have to shut down his operation.
“If I sell my eggs not as free-range but as barn eggs then my cost [to produce barn eggs] will actually be higher than the retail price of barn eggs,” Petrides said. “In other words, I will have to subsidise every egg I sell. So the only thing I can do is close up and go home.”
Petrides first began setting up his free-range egg production operation in 2001, which he said took him four years and over £800,000 to set up. The first batch of Petrides’ free-range eggs was delivered to supermarkets in early October, only a week before the bird flu panic hit Cyprus.
“Who’s going to give me those £800,000 now?” Petrides asked. At a Wednesday meeting with Agriculture Minister Timis Efthymiou, the free-range chicken farmers raised the issue of compensation, but Efthymiou would not make them any assurances.
Petrides said that although EU law prescribed the 12-week limit for farmers to maintain the free-range label, the EU also told member states they could decide on what precautionary measures are taken.
“So the government could easily say that the danger has passed and that we can let our birds out again,” Petrides said, then characterising as “inexcusable” the government’s decision to maintain the restrictive measures despite the passing of the bird migration season and the absence of bird flu cases in Cyprus.
“In countries where they have been bird flu cases and where they have lots of ponds and lakes to attract birds they still haven’t required farmers to enclose their birds,” Petrides said.
“Here we don’t even have water to drink and we’re afraid that birds are going to come?”
