Potential impacts of a prohibition of keeping laying hens in cages on the structure of laying hen herds and on egg markets

The presently practised egg production system of keeping laying hens in cag es is subject to criticism in Germany, and has initiated various activities aiming at its prohibition. The EC-Commission is also concerned about the i mpacts of present egg production systems on the welfare of laying hens. On the basis of a report of the Animal Welfare Section of the Scientific Veter inary Committee on the pros and cons of various production systems, the Com mission has submitted early 1998 a proposal for a guideline for keeping lay ing hens to be enacted before 2009. This paper is based on a study prepared for the Federal Ministry of Food, A griculture and Forestry at the end of 1997, which investigated into the pot ential and likely impacts which a prohibition of keeping laying hens in cag es either on a national basis or for the EC at all might have on the struct ure of laying hen herds and on egg markets in Germany or in the EC respecti vely. Starting from an estimation of the proportion of laying hens kept in cage systems in Germany and of the eggs produced within these systems with respect to total egg production and consumption in Germany, suppositions ar e stated upon the potential and likely reactions of different group of egg producers and of egg consumers to market changes following a prohibition of cage systems in Germany, based on available data on competitiveness of var ious production systems with respect to production and markets as well as o n plausibility criteria about producers' and consumers' behaviour. The conc lusions drawn from these suppositions are then transferred to the case of a EC-wide prohibition of the present systems of keeping laying hens in cages , whereby particular attention is directed to the question whether the trad e barriers available presently and after renewed WTO-talks might be suffici ent to protect the EC-own egg production against competition of imports fro m non-EC countries.