Britain’s supermarket shelves could be empty of key products within a month as an acute shortage of eggs threatens to have serious consequences for the country’s food chain. New EU rules banning the housing of hens in conventional cages are being blamed for what some in the industry are already labelling a “crisis”, as competition among food manufacturers to source eggs sends prices rocketing. The price of eggs on the EU wholesale market has nearly quadrupled over the past week to more than four euros a kilo.
“It’s now no longer a question of price, it’s a question of supply,” said one industry source who asked to be anonymous. “I estimate that within three to four weeks some companies will be at breaking point.”
France too.
It is eggciting to watch progressives discover unintended consequences.
Oh but its all total coincidence, no collusion here. I mean multi Euro nations all have the same food commodity shortage at the same time sending prices soaring. Uh are the chickens striking? Where has the capacity gone? The eggs gotta go somewhere.
“It’s now no longer a question of price, it’s a question of supply,” said one industry source who asked to be anonymous. “I estimate that within three to four weeks some companies will be at breaking point.”
Yeah the small producer who keeps the large producers in line. After this dust up only a few corporate super producers will be standing and own the market dictating price. Don’t tell me big agra’s influence on the EU council didn’t persuade them to regulate small producers off the market – thy knew exactly what they were doing.
Bottom line- more EU regulating kills competition for the large corporate interests tied to EU council. Ownership base of Ag production shrinks again and Euro oligopoly wins another round.
This should send chills up your spine. Its bad enough having corrupt governments screw with the food supply but when they get in bed with monopolist profiteers creating demand?
This reminds me of Cuba about eight years ago. Went to a private market and found a guy selling small hand mirrors for $5/mirror. Five dollars U.S. was a monthly salary for most Cubans at the time (along with a monthly ration of beans, rice, cooking oil and 20 L of gasoline – vehicle ownership not required). The mirrors were made from salvaged glass, crudely cut and painted over on the back. The guy was a bit of an entrepreneur, although he looked like he had had the spirit beat right out of him. I asked him why he was selling these mirrors. The answer was that the annual production of mirrors hadn’t met the needs of the local population, thanks to central planning in Havana. So he was attempting to meet local demand for a scarce product.
Eggs, mirrors – no difference. A communist system is a communist system.
This is an instant replay of the Great Leap Forward. It was how Chairman Mao killed 30 million plus Chinese in a few years, more or less by accident as a consequence of seriously bad policy.
Look for a grey market in eggs to spring up almost overnight, as small producers just move under the table instead of following orders from Brussels.
This is bad by the way, because fly-by-night producers don’t get inspected and they don’t look after their flock properly etc. Its like a prescription for how to start a famine.
I just read this this morning also about eggs.
http://news.yahoo.com/urine-soaked-eggs-spring-taste-treat-china-city-095923594.html
O/T but I needed to share
Can the Europeans even afford petrol to drive to the market to get eggs ?
,
This is bad by the way, because fly-by-night producers don’t get inspected and they don’t look after their flock properly etc.
Idiot city people, farmers have been eating and selling their own eggs for years without gov’t inspection.
City people, need a nanny or they would starve.
@ Ratt
If not, I am sure the E.U. can come up with a rationing system where everyone gets their fair share…
:oD
Guys are starting to build barns here in Ontario that are “free” range, and of course they get a paid premium as well. Can’t remember the number of birds in the new barns but it’s way less than the conventional barns.
Hey Phantom, I hear ya but not that long ago my parents used to drive not far from town and pick up a dozen eggs from a local farmer that had a large old style chicken coop and about two hundred hens running around the pasture, and low and be hold the whole family is still around, most of the old residents of town as well that probably got their eggs from the same place.
If the progressive idiots keep it up, and the companies keep blindly complying with city sensibilities the only way you’ll enjoy a fried egg is from a backyard chicken coop.
Nevermind firing these kind of people, hang em from lamp posts.
Don’t tell me big agra’s influence on the EU council didn’t persuade them to regulate small producers off the market – thy knew exactly what they were doing.
Yeah, they did the same thing here with small abattoirs. Make enough expensive rules and regulations and they go out of business.
Now, if there’s contamination, lots of people get sick. Instead of only a few. Didn’t happen much anyway with owner/operators. Not good for business.
I’ve got French friends who are really smart. They put a small coop in their yard a couple of years ago. Next step for the Euros, The Egg Police.
Upon relocating from the Forts in Westphalia, Germany to the Southern sites of Lahr and Baden Baden, Canadians moving into living quarters within the city of Lahr, previously occupied by French Air Force personnel, discovered signs of chickens having been kept in kitchen cupboards.
Occam
I don’t understand how “New EU rules banning the housing of hens in conventional cages” favors the mega corporations as you suggest. On the contrary it tends to favor smaller producers. The mega corps need to justify producing X kg of eggs (meat, etc) per unit area. If the chicken housing density is reduced, then costs will soar.
Whether we like big corporations or not, we have an SAFE, INEXPENSIVE and PLENTIFUL food supply in Canada. If I had to buy groceries locally from small producers 12 months per year, I could not afford to eat and the selection of fresh produce in winter would be restricted to potatoes and rutabagas. (More than that, but you get the idea.) We rely on efficient production from competitive large family farms and companies, both locally and internationally.
Canadians don’t understand how small-scale food production is so horrifically inefficient. It is ‘warm and fuzzy’ and makes ya feel good, but does not feed the masses.
I worked with the highly productive food production system (including farmers) in western Canada for decades. And I spent a lot of time working in agriculture in northern China and have a strong sense of just how damn efficient we are producing food compared to places like China.
Regards,
Clive
In BC it is illegal to butcher chickens for resale. The government subsidized a mobile abattoir to come to town and do the job. Personally I was relieved as having people drop in the streets from samanella poisoning was getting a little stale. Thank my lucky stars that when we butchered a 100 chickens at a time in the ‘old’ days that we didn’t die around the kitchen table!
Clive, your points may be correct, but they don’t apply with respect to the EU regulatory apparatus. Let me explain.
If you were to print out a single copy of every EU regulatory document, it would fill about 50 rail boxcars. The simple list of the regulations runs to several million items. In the EU, all of these regulations are exactingly prescriptive.
What this means is that only a large organization can possibly keep track of and ensure compliance with the legion of regulations that apply to any particular industry. Moreover, the compliance costs themselves are extremely high. Hence, small producers get squeezed out.
Quite literally, the only way to put a stop to it would be to magically make a number of very large buildings in Brussels disappear off the face of the planet. All by itself, the Brussels bureaucracy probably lops at least 5% of the GDP from every member nation.
Canadians don’t understand how small-scale food production is so horrifically inefficient.
If it were so inefficient they wouldn’t need to be driven out of business by expensive rules and regulations. The market would do that.
I’m astonished reading the comments from the Guardian piece (then again, they do read The Guardian)…another case of folks wanting the world to be popsicles and and candy but not realizing the costs associated. Currently they have trucks that drive around with sensors charging households who watch TV without paying their TV Tax(!!), soon they will have chicken patrols. It never ends. England is doomed.
Mugs and fiddle, you are living in a dream world. You’re still thinking 1920s when Farmer John’s wife kept a few chickens and sold the eggs off the tailgate of the farm pickup. Farmer John retired, those days are gone.
Think “grow op”. That’s what I’m talking about. Can you say “salmonella”? go ahead, say it with me now…
There’s a reason eggs get inspected. The reason is that some people in this world are @SSH0LES who don’t care if you die from eating their vermin infested toxic eggs. And people do die from that, have no doubt.
Not -everything- government does is pointless and stupid you know. Most of the problems we have are government NOT doing what they are supposed to do and spending the money doing a bunch of crap they are not supposed to do. Like this egg thing.
Looks like the odds of that famine are increasing daily, Kate.
commenters on this board seem to act as if nanny statism is an ‘over there’ situation. We have it here, just in a different and less developed state.
In the EU they have been printing individual eggs, for years now, with a code so as to identify non-regulated (black market) eggs.
One must realize that the relationship between the regulators (the government), big agra (the finacially more successful) and the academics (nanny state cheerleaders) is symbiotic. I doubt that the general public, especially urban educated, realize they need the small, even unregulated, producers to keep the large entity in check for everyones good, even the good of the large producer.
In other words, the big guy needs the little guy, because without him, the gov’t would be able to come up with more and more red tape even faster, squeezing margins even thinner to the point where gov’t takeover is even easier.
Furthermore, farmers get more done in a half a day than most corporations do in two days. That’s a fact, I’ve seen both sides. You want to talk about inefficiency, between the standing around waiting for somebody to make a decision and the gov’t mandated make-work jobs, like safety, it’s a wonder anything gets done.
If farms operated like most corporations they’d be broke in six months.
“Canadians don’t understand how small-scale food production is so horrifically inefficient.”
Not according to our local farmers’ market in the summer. Quality is consistently much better than supermarkets and produce prices competetive (not including loss leaders). FWIW, I usually buy free range eggs from my local grocer – for about a dollar or so a dozen I get a much deeper coloured yolk and in my opinion, a better taste..
What a line:
“As a result, British producers are keen to ensure illegal eggs are not imported into this country.”
Illegal eggs? This is insane.
There’s a reason eggs get inspected. The reason is that some people in this world are @SSH0LES who don’t care if you die from eating their vermin infested toxic eggs. And people do die from that, have no doubt.
Like I said, city people need a nanny. Especially easterners.
One reason the Wildrose is so popular, expensive gov’t mandated rules and regulations put in place for our own good. Keep it in the east, we don’t need a nanny.
Not a storey of little producer vs big producer but a storey of “better living conditions for our food”.
The EU ruling elite know what is best for the residents of the EU. One of the things that is best for all of us is to have better living conditions for our food. This has the support of animal rights groups. And it just feels good to impose it on everybody.
The sub plot as I see it is that this is just one of many regulatory requirements imposed on people and business that are contrary to common sense. I recommend reading The Death of Common Sense, by Philip K. Howard to see how prescriptive regulation is taking over the common law/common sense approach. It provides an illusion of certainty and certainty of increased cost and bureaucracy. Bureaucracy and elites reproduce and grow like a bad bacteria.
I think this one is airplaning a lot of people here. There are two issues in play. The first is EU regulation causing a shortage and the second is keeping chickens in battery cages.
On the second, I buy certified free range or free run eggs when I can. Free range means access to outdoors and free run mean in a barn but cage free. Most other eggs are produced by hens who spend their entire lives in small, wire-bottomed cages in a factory. It’s not pretty. I prefer to get eggs from farmers and not factories and that is my choice. I’ll promote my choice and hope that others choose the same.
The EU’s mistake isn’t in saying battery cages are bad it is in mandating something that the public isn’t ready for. When enough people demand humane treatment of their food animals then corporations will respond to that demand. Mandating it by fiat is ridiculous because there is no way to produce the same number of eggs in the same space using cage-less methods. Given time and demand it would work, I think, but bureaucrats mandating it, well, that’s a recipe for an egg shortage.
Canadians don’t understand how small-scale food production is so horrifically inefficient.
In the big picture small-scale food production is inefficient. Individuals may be efficient. Point being, the way to feed the masses is with large-scale production. For example, a whole bunch of market gardeners cannot feed 6 million people in the GTA.
If it were so inefficient they wouldn’t need to be driven out of business by expensive rules and regulations. The market would do that.
Not so. There are small number of people who mainly drive Beemers, Volvos and Lexuses (Lexi?) (I can hear the screams of protest ☺ lighten up… ☺) that support farmer’s markets. By and large, folks with lots of disposable income support a small amount of small-scale production in developed countries. You do not see rusted Datsuns at Whole Foods and upscale farmers markets. There is always room for expensive food that is perceived to be fresher and tastier…it may or may not be. But we are talking about feeding 7 billion people here, not yuppies or boomers with a lot of disposable income. Heck, if they’d spend $9 on a friggin ‘coffee’ at Starbucks what do they care about $3/pound organic carrots? ☺
In Saskatchewan, a 2,000-acre farm is managed by a family of four living in one house, driving 3 or 4 vehicles and using a lot of big equipment. Production is incredibly efficient, safe and productive. That one family feeds hundreds of people. (Yeah they eat more than just wheat, but you get the idea.) In northern China, that same 2,000 acres is farmed by 2,000 people living in 500 houses. They produce enough to feed about 2,000 others, i.e. one to one.
So my point is, small-scale food production is inefficient regarding feeding millions and billions of people.
If you want to see what a complete nut this man really is, look no further than this video:
http://youtu.be/lLT47_H2gb4
Sorry everyone, I put my post on the wrong thread.
In Saskatchewan, a 2,000-acre farm is managed by a family of four living in one house, driving 3 or 4 vehicles and using a lot of big equipment.
Yeah, one thing the socialists were always good at, making sure the province didn’t get overcrowded.
BTW, a typical public corporation, running the same operation, would likely require more safety people and pencil pushers than that.
Anyway, we don’t exist to feed the world, we exist to provide ourselves with the standard of living we desire.
In northern China, that same 2,000 acres is farmed by 2,000 people living in 500 houses. They produce enough to feed about 2,000 others, i.e. one to one.
Couldn’t be the wastefulness of the communist system? You sound like the typical gov’t Ag. man, totally ignorant.
Met one educated gov’t Ag. man who ‘helped’ his brother modernize his farm. He went broke.
Oh, and I could care less who feeds the GTA. Or if anybody does. I’m sure their nanny will take care of them.
One would think that regulation-induced shortages would pull the social engineers up short, forcing them to reassess their assumptions and conclusions.
But that’s not the way it works. They just make their arguments more convoluted, shifting the blame to the Koch brothers if at all possible.
“Not -everything- government does is pointless and stupid you know.”
YES-IT-IS!!!
We have a small flock of chickens because my wife LIKEs chickens and as a result we get eggs. Lots and lots of eggs. She can’t be bothered to sell them so she gives them away.Friends get them. Aquaintances get them. Hell, if you are lot and wander into the yard looking for directions you get a dozen eggs. Nice eggs. Brown eggs. Eggs from chickens that roam the farm looking for worms and grubs and all the things that make SUPER free range eggs. Guess we should up the price to $15/doz and make some money.
And speaking of chicken police a few years ago there was a desease outbreak in B.C. The chicken gestapo werde goining to each farm forcing them to kill ALL the chickens. They went to the neighbor would also had free range chickens.They said to kill all the chickens. He said if you want them killed you catch them and kill them yourself.WRONG! These we lazy govt workers(are there any other kind)and they couldn’t be bothered. We simply told the gestapo we didn’t have chickens. Again, too f’n lazy to check.
Gotta go and let the chickens out now.
I used to work in a business that was connected to agriculture and in that business the company had to perform. There just weren’t any viable excuses if you missed a shipment. When I was promoted to another division I got a rep for getting things done on time. Used to tell people “You don’t have my advantages, You never worked for the farmers”.
Phantom try early seventies, and I wouldn’t count the good old days out the same people setting some of these crazy regulations, believe in a perfect world and depending who they are talking to are great at playing both sides of the fence. If they keep it up people will be by passing the egg grading station, meat inspector and any other barrier standing in their way put there by government in the first place.
When is it going to become inhumane to expect anything from another living thing under a human being in the food chain (especially if it’s cute at anytime in it’s life-cycle)?
People have to stop giving progressives an inch, or acquire a taste for beansprout salad.
People have to stop giving progressives an inch…
Yeah, but we have to do it ‘incrementally’, or they might get mad.
Pleasing your enemies does not turn them into friends.
@ Horny Toad at March 30, 2012 12:22 PM
Agree completely. It’s been over 20 years since we paid for eggs or chicken. Neighbors small hobby farm. Never had a problem. I make wine and the natives come around with cigaretts. Gotta love the underground economy. The more regulations/taxes go in, the more middle fingers go up.
Only in god forsaken Europe could an Islamofacist’s Hamas loving thug win an election whilst those who oppose radical Islamofacism go to jail.
For people who worry about salmonella in raw eggs, you can buy raw, pasteurized eggs in the shell that are salmonella free.
I wonder what kind of tariff the European CAP puts on eggs from outside euroland?
Say.Didn’t Stalin try this,only with wheat? I hear he was highly successful at feeding his people.
I don’t understand how “New EU rules banning the housing of hens in conventional cages” favors the mega corporations
EU rules that the cages should be chicken-friendly so farmers have to buy bigger, modern cages. That means that farmers have to spend money buying such cages. For smaller farmers this is a large expense and medium farms are spending thousands of euros for this “improvement”. Farmers money is tight and some can not afford to do that. For example in Poland some farms might soon go bankrupt and in Spain farmers instead of complying with EU directives simply killed hens. Spain went from being exporter of eggs/chicken to being an importer.
For some farmers EU regulations can also means that l they may not afford to keep enough hens to make their business profitable. (bigger cages = bigger space = less hens)
On the other hand corporation earn more money and that means that they can afford an expense of buying new cages.
****
EU made a lot of such “inventive” regulations.
fiddle
In part, China’s problems are to do with communism, but it is largely that they are still developing and that here are 1.3 billion Chinese.
However, your comments about me personally are offensive and inaccurate. I am not “totally ignorant.” I worked as horticultural a production specialist, market gardener and as a private consultant in Canada and China for over 40 years and your comments about me are unwelcome, inaccurate and offensive. I’ve been hired to work in most Canadian provinces and made many trips to China and help develop a viable large-scale seed potato company to supply disease-free seed to producers. (Like we have here in SK and AB.)
“”Anyway, we don’t exist to feed the world, we exist to provide ourselves with the standard of living we desire.” THE VERY REASON YOU HAVE A DECENT STANDARD OF LIVING BECAUSE YOU ARE FREED FROM THE LAND BY LARGE-SCALE EFFICIENT PRODUCTION!! You don’t get it do you?
Even small-scale producers would not have a market for their wares if 50% of the population were small-scale farmers. Their markets are people who work off the land and 98% of Canadian work off the land because of large-scale efficient production. Can you grasp this? Maybe not.
Regards
Clive
It seems fiddle has a problem distinguishing between actual farmers who know what the h*ll they’re doing and a bunch of meat-head bikers/gypsies/Travelers selling bent eggs on the roadside because there’s a buck in it this week.
The point is that the EU is trying as hard as they can to create a black market in food to match the black market in drugs.
So FIDDLE, how you going to feel when your food is as safe as street drugs are, huh? Ghod you’re thick.
And you can take your “city people” bullsh1t and cram it up your @ss pal. I live in the country.
THE VERY REASON YOU HAVE A DECENT STANDARD OF LIVING BECAUSE YOU ARE FREED FROM THE LAND BY LARGE-SCALE EFFICIENT PRODUCTION!!
Another elitist who has contempt for making ones living from the land. Freed from the land, indeed.
So FIDDLE, how you going to feel when your food is as safe as street drugs are, huh? Ghod you’re thick.
I know where to get safe, wholesome food. I guess you need a nanny. I know it’s not safe to trust easterners.
“I know where to get safe, wholesome food.”
Bully for you, lad. You’re good with watching your neighbors snuff it, are ya? You got yours so screw everybody else. Awesome.
You’re good with watching your neighbors snuff it, are ya?
You bet, butchered a beef many times. Don’t need a nanny to tell me what’s safe to eat. People used to know these things but nowadays they’ve gone stupid and need a nanny.