Too many chickens with too little space. In the Netherlands, fast-growing broilers are found almost everywhere, with 21 birds per square meter. According to Wakker Dier, there should be no more than 16 and the Netherlands is violating European welfare standards.
The animal welfare organization believes that poultry farmers are wrongly allowed to use an exception rule, which means that farmers with a low mortality rate among chickens are allowed to keep a higher number of broilers. Wakker Dier starts a procedure with the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) to force them to enforce the rules and asks the European Commission to intervene.
All fresh chicken in Dutch supermarkets will have at least one Better Life star. This means: no more than 12 chicks per square meter. The share of plofkip in Dutch poultry farming is therefore steadily declining, but is still around half, according to research institute Wageningen Economic Research. This cheap chicken is largely intended for export.
Plantar ulcers
Wakker Dier is now initiating a discussion about the living space standards for this category of chickens without an animal welfare quality mark. “Even with five or six chickens per square meter, chickens get foot pad ulcers more often than when they have the space, they can walk less well and show natural behavior,” says spokesperson Sjoerd van der Wouw of Wakker Dier. The European Food Authority (EFSA) therefore advises no more than 11 kilos, less than six chickens, per square meter to allow.
The standards for floppy chicken are far away from that ideal. The basic rule is that no more than 33 kilograms of chicken (approximately 16 chickens) may be kept in one square meter. Companies where chicken mortality remains below 3.5 percent may increase this to a maximum of 42 kilos. That’s about 21 chickens per square meter.
Each time all the chickens go to slaughter counts as a ’round’. A company may only increase to maximum occupancy if the mortality rate has remained below 3.5 percent for seven consecutive rounds. The problem is that that condition is no longer taken into account once they are in that category, according to Wakker Dier.
The NVWA and the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) both confirm that it is standard practice to keep 21 broilers per square meter. “It is permitted,” LNV and NVWA email in response to questions. “The majority of farms with broiler chickens keep these animals at the highest stocking density.”
According to Wakker Dier, what the organization sees as an exception rule is wrongly used. “The law is being structurally violated,” says Van der Wouw. It is not known how many companies are involved. The Netherlands has more than six hundred broiler farms and exports almost 1.5 million tons of chick meat annually.
Woo documents that Wakker Dier received after two years of litigation show that the European Commission has confronted the Netherlands about the overly broad interpretation of European animal welfare directives. Mortality may not be averaged but must be recorded per day and the NVWA must monitor this. Farmers must send their mortality figures when chickens are sent to slaughter, “but nothing is done with them,” says Van der Wouw. “So it didn’t help any chicken.”
“There is no clarity about resetting in category if the dropout rate is too high,” according to the NVWA. “The NVWA has questions about the interpretation of the directive in Dutch legislation.”
The NVWA and the ministry have been discussing for years how enforcement of the occupancy standard can be arranged. In the meantime, no company has been downgraded to a lower occupancy category. The NVWA does check for overcrowding, but only checks whether companies exceed the maximum of 42 kilos per square meter. In 2022, the NVWA noted based on slaughter weight and stable size, 284 violations. Then there were more than 21 chickens per square meter. If this happens more often, the NVWA will issue a fine at most.
Corona and bird flu
The question is how the NVWA should enforce a stricter interpretation. The NVWA carries out administrative and physical inspections of companies, but adds: “Fewer physical inspections have been carried out due to corona and bird flu.” In 2009, the inspection only went to a company nine times. Almost all checks (9,335) were administrative.
The ministry is currently working on an agreement for ‘animal husbandry’, which also includes more space for chickens. Wakker Dier doesn’t want to wait for that. “That law has been clear for fifteen years. If too many animals die before slaughter, companies will have to return to a lower occupancy rate.”
The Animal Protection Society, like Wakker Dier, believes that the current rules are not animal-friendly, but does not believe that this violates the law.
In the meantime, poultry farming is rapidly shifting towards less and less broiler chicken, says Peter van Horne, poultry expert at Wageningen Economic Research. He says that the companies usually meet the mortality standard, “although things can go wrong once in a while, it fluctuates seasonally.”
Lower occupancy is not realistic for plofkip, he says. “33 kilos per square meter is very expensive for farmers. Then you cannot compete with other European farmers who keep more broilers per square meter, because that also happens in other EU countries. If companies have to return to work, it will be “economically disastrous”.
A version of this article also appeared in the September 20, 2023 newspaper.