Is Your Favorite Organic Egg Brand a Factory Farm in Disguise?

[ensho]

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/09/eggs-salmonella-cage-free


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An industrial henhouse jam-packed with 36,000 birds, on the other hand, is probably not "the way nature intended." But that is exactly what investigators from the organic food advocacy group Cornucopia Institute found when they visited a Wisconsin henhouse that supplies Chino Valley Ranchers with organic eggs.

And Chino Valley isn't alone. A recent Cornucopia investigation revealed that conditions at many facilities that produce organic eggs are often just as crowded and industrial as those at conventional egg farms. And although US organic standards require outdoor access for laying hens, Cornucopia found that at many organic farms, "outdoors" often consists of nothing more than a tiny concrete screen porch adjoining the tenement-like henhouse.

Last year, eleven organic egg producers (listed below) signed a letter to the National Organic Standards Board opposing the rule that mandates organic operations to grant their chickens outdoor access. They argued that the rule put too much of a financial burden on producers; the Cornucopia report excerpts a comment that Bart Slaugh, Eggland's Best's director of quality assurance, posted to the NASD: "The push for continually expanding outdoor access and decreasing protection needs to stop," writes Slaugh.

(humans need some sunlight to be healthy, so do animals)

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Egg producers against which Cornucopia is filing a complaint:

The Country Hen (Hubbartson, Massachusetts)
Hillandale (Spring Grove, Pennsylvania)
Petaluma Farms (Petaluma, California)
Paul Fuenger Farm (Genoa,

Egg producers that signed a letter opposing outdoor access for chickens as an organic standard:

Cal-Maine Foods
Delta Egg Farms
Dixie Egg Company
Fassio Egg Farms
Fort Recovery Equity, Inc.
Herbruck's Poultry Ranch (green meadow organics) in Saranac, Michigan
Kreher's Farm Fresh Eggs, LLC
Nature Pure, LLC
Oakdell Egg Farms
Ritewood, Inc.
R.W. Sauder, Inc.

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[tularetom]

1. I doubt it since the eggs are produced about 50 feet from my house

[ensho]

2. lucky you

nt

[ensho]

3. not long ago I posted an article about Detroit women starting to

raise chickens/eggs. and veg. gardens in the abandaned lots, etc. and starting new businesses.

from cars to good, safe food

[Luminous Animal]

4. Fortunately, the coop I shop at visits the farms it buys its eggs from

and posts a description of the conditions of each brand on the door of the egg refrigerator.

[ensho]

5. kick

nt

[flamingdem]

6. Bummer! you think you're pay extra for some happy chicken running around outside nt

[BrklynLiberal]

7. There is a great chart...rating the good farms..and enabling one to find a local good egg source.