By Chelsea Szabo
Bird flu has been making headlines as locals and those across Victoria are met with empty egg shelves, but issues other than influenza are affecting the struggling industry, according to those in the trade.
John, farmhand at Coldstream’s Farm Fresh Yarra Valley Produce said farmers have struggled to make ends meet in the industry, leading to the next generation passing it up.
“That’s our biggest problem at the moment, youth do not want to take on the industry, and the industry is getting old, so it was a matter of time before the crunch came, and we haven’t even scratched the surface yet.”
He said egg producers in the area have dwindled significantly in the last 20 years from more than 18 to about half a dozen.
Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) egg group president Meg Parkinson said there are “plenty” of young people getting into the industry, but to succeed they need experience.
“You need to understand finance and all those things as well. It’s not just farming,” she said.
The president said smaller farms “don’t last” because people do not understand the challenges of running an egg farm, and after a couple of years, they go out of business or sell to someone else.
“[Egg farms] are getting bigger, so that smaller ones are being covered up or being included in the bigger ones.”
In 2023, the Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Poultry mandated all farms change their caged infrastructure to allow for more space per bird, along with other new requirements.
The guidelines vary depending on when their caged systems were built, but egg farmers with cages constructed from 2015 to mid-2022 have till 2036 to ensure they comply, meaning farmers have to invest in new infrastructure, putting pressure on the industry.
Coles, Woolworths and Aldi have taken things a step further than the welfare guidelines and announced they will no longer sell caged eggs in 2025, the date of which is uncertain.
A Woolworths spokesperson told the ABC that demand for caged eggs has continued to fall in recent years.
“At the beginning of 2024, sales of caged eggs were less than 10 per cent of all eggs sold at Woolworths,” they said.
Australia-wide, free range eggs make up 57.4 percent of grocery egg sales, according to Australian Eggs, a figure that has risen significantly in the last 15 years.
Coldstream farmhand John said the mandates are not good for consumers.
“Without cages, egg prices are just going to keep rising because free range birds don’t lay as many eggs as what caged eggs do,” he said.
“As the chicken runs around and burns off energy, she doesn’t put it towards laying an egg.”
He said the same phase-out was done in New Zealand and now egg prices have soared.
“Not everyone can afford $15 a dozen, those who want to, sure, those who can’t, can’t.”
The VFF egg group president said not only the mandates, but immigration is a factor affecting the egg industry, even before the 2024 bird flu outbreaks.
“[Egg farms] were expanding because there’s more immigration, and the immigrants come from countries that eat a lot of eggs, so the demand was increasing anyway.”
She said though the time it will take to replace the infected birds is about six months, research papers have predicted it will take until 2028 for the industry to catch up to the extra demand from immigration, depending on the government’s policies.
Conspiracy theories about the existence of bird flu have also emerged amid Victoria’s rush to quarantine infected farms in Euroa.
One theory said there is no bird flu, and it is an excuse for egg producers to cull many of their birds without outcry and get their farms ready to comply with the new mandates.
The VFF egg group president did not agree with the idea that the bird flu is a hoax.
“When you look at what it costs [egg farmers who cull their birds because of avian influenza], there’s no way that they do that. They can usually just cull their birds anyway, if they want to.”
