Organic? | | Some chickens don't live as good conditions as these |
Do you buy organic because you care about the condition in which your food is produced? You may be surprised at what you're actually getting for your money, as Inside Out investigates. Supermarkets are full of organic products, so-called because they're produced in supposedly better, more sanitary and less chemically-enhanced conditions. But are they really worth the extra cash? Take eggs, for example. Many people now only buy free range or organic eggs because they disagree with battery farming, where chickens are bred in overcrowded factory conditions to produce cheap eggs. But it seems that some of the £19 million worth of organic eggs sold each year may have come from exactly the same sort of conditions as battery-farmed produce. To label chicken or eggs as organic there are certain standards all food producers must meet, like making sure their birds spend a third of their life outdoors, as well as feeding them organic grains and making sure no antibiotics are administered unless absolutely necessary. But the reality is that current regulations mean very few of the 30 million eggs sold as organic are purely organic. That's because birds which could go on to produce organic eggs can spend the first 18 weeks of their lives being fed non-organic food, kept in-doors and given antibiotics. They can then go on a conversion course to become organic. And some organic chicken farms are slow to treat an ill bird, because if drugs are used, the farm can lose its organic status, and that costs. In extreme cases, the reluctance to medicate can lead to death and disease in the flock. Inside Out reveals footage shot secretly by animal welfare campaigners at a chicken farm and asked vet Alastair for his opinion. He was shocked at what he saw, and has this advice for consumers: "People have an image of organically reared birds as happy birds, ranging in the field - and in a lot of instances they are. "I think you can get good and bad farms mo matter what the production method is, and I think we have to be aware of that, but I don't think all organically reared chicken is as welfare friendly as it might be or should be."
One of the better examples are poultry farmers Roger and Adrian Potter, who raise 26,000 organic chickens on their 17-acre Yorkshire farm. They're committed to being totally organic, as Roger explains: "It's a lovely way to farm, as natural as you can get, but it's an extremely expensive way to farm. This is the ultimate system we can get." But for the 26,000 egg-laying hens kept in the spacious mobile farm houses, it's a small price to pay for a better quality of life and more consumer-friendly end product. Just make sure next time you go to the supermarket that the food you're buying does exactly what it says on the tin. Links relating to this story:The BBC is not responsible for the content of external website | 
Inside Out - Yorkshire & Lincolnshire: Monday October 10, 2005
