Denmark’s animal welfare minister is pursuing a national ban on fast-growing chickens and a similar EU measure after a TV2 documentary raised allegations about conditions at a poultry farm.
Denmark’s Minister for Nature and Animal Welfare Christian Rabjerg Madsen told TV2 he would work toward both bans. He said legal and economic reviews were needed before the government acted and urged consumers not to buy the birds.
The documentary, broadcast the previous week, included secretly filmed footage from inside a chicken coop in North Jutland. Separately, it alleged that producer Christian Tvergaard gave his chickens only half the daily darkness required by Danish rules, using the lighting schedule to encourage them to eat more. Tvergaard told TV2 he had made “some wrong decisions” and said he had changed the lighting program and barn procedures.
The Guardian reported that Danpo chief executive Klement Hinkbøl Ribergaard warned that a Danish production ban would need to include imported chicken. Otherwise, shops, restaurants and consumers could still buy fast-growing birds raised abroad, he said.
The Guardian also reported that the proposal has cross-party support. The Guardian cited Eurogroup for Animals as saying that 95% of chickens in the EU are raised in intensive systems and bred to produce meat as cheaply as possible, creating what the group called a “race to the bottom.” The group’s chief executive said fast-growing breeds are predisposed to suffering. The report cited Denmark’s earlier “pig election” as a precedent for farm-animal welfare becoming a political issue.
Madsen said the legal and economic reviews must come before government action.
