Taiwan News
Date: 2016-07-06
By: Jennifer Lin, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
The Council of Agriculture (COA) has implemented from July 1 the “Definition and Guideline of Friendly Eggs Production System” to ban battery cages in Taiwan.
According to COA statistics, there are an estimated 1,700 poultry farms keeping up to 3.6 million hens in Taiwan, which supply between 1.8 million to 1.9 million eggs each day, and an equivalent of 68 billion of eggs annually. Unfortunately, 99 percent of chickens are kept in closed cages of A4 size.
Switzerland, a member of the European Union (EU), is the first EU country to ban the raising of egg-laying hens in battery cages on January 1, 1992, followed by Germany in 2010. The European Commission has adopted the Council Directive 1999/74/CE regulations to protect the hens since 1999 and later in 2012 implemented a total ban in the Europe Union. [FULL STORY]