“Keeping chickens in cages will be banned in Estonia Starting in 2035, keeping chickens in cages will be banned in Estonia, which will require significant investments from companies. Producers will have to spend 50 to 60 euros per hen to convert poultry farmers.”, — write on: unn.ua
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According to the Ministry of Regional Development and Agriculture of the country, currently 81% of all chickens in Estonian egg production enterprises are kept in cages. If the keeping of chickens in cages is prohibited in Estonia from 2035, the transition to keeping chickens in another option will require significant investments from enterprises – it will be necessary to replace all equipment in poultry houses.
The head of Estonia’s largest egg producer, Dava Foods, Allan Tohver, said that this also involves the need to update existing ones or build new ones.
“This is an investment that is about 50-60 euros per chicken. That is, if we have 300,000 chickens, it will be about 15 million euros for our company. It will be the construction of new poultry houses,” explained Tohver.
Currently, Dava Foods is working on a project in which they are trying to adapt an existing poultry house to keep chickens on the floor, but this is not a cheap pleasure.
“You can’t do anything, these old poultry farms are already depreciated, they need to be updated. If you want to improve the conditions for the birds, it still requires a lot of money, and a few euros won’t do here,” he said.
Estonia’s third-largest egg producer, Linnu Talu OÜ, plans to move its chickens from cages to the floor in most cases by 2027.
Currently, 38% of the company’s birds are kept in free range or floor housing. For this, the company had to renovate two old, usually empty, buildings, which ended up costing about 1.2 million euros. For investments, it was necessary to take a loan and submit an application for support from PRIA.
The company’s business manager, Jarno Hermet, said that in order to switch to keeping chickens on the floor, they plan to continue to renovate the existing buildings. In this case, the total amount of investment can be about three million euros.
“We were not able to build new (birdhouses). Investments, as they were, remain expensive for producers. We hope that we will be able to replace the equipment and reduce the load,” he said.
Such investments also affect the price of eggs, added business manager Linnu Talu.
“The investment itself is expensive, the payback period is long, and it’s also more expensive to produce eggs from free-range chickens. There are higher energy costs because you need more ventilation, higher labor costs, some eggs go to waste, and higher feed and water costs because the birds are moving more and therefore consuming more energy,” he explained.
Minister of Regional Development and Agriculture Piret Hartman said that the state hopes to find opportunities to support businesses during the transition to keeping chickens on the floor.
“This year, various investments for food manufacturers will soon be opened. You can already apply for financing to make investments and support this transition. And in the next period, we will definitely take these changes into account so that enterprises receive state support for the implementation of this transitional stage.” , Hartman explained.
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