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Video When in roam

Mary Gearin

What exactly does it mean when a chicken is said to be free to roam? Well that's the nub of a case currently before the Federal Court. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is challenging some of Australia's biggest chicken producers over their free roaming claims and want their ads banned.


ANNE KRUGER, PRESENTER: Here is a story about the latest row over truth in food labelling. What exactly does it mean when a chicken is said to be free to roam? Well that's the nub of a case currently before the Federal Court. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is challenging some of Australia's biggest chicken producers over their free-roaming claims and wants their ads banned. Mary Gearin reports.

MARY GEARIN, REPORTER: Australians love their chicken, eating almost 44 kilograms a year per capita, much more than any of its rivals. Yet the way it's farmed is now in the spotlight.

This vision was taken covertly one night last year in a Victorian farm. According to Animals Australia, we're seeing a hidden, cruel side to chicken meat farming.

GLENYS OOGJES, ANIMALS AUSTRALIA: What we can see if you look along the shed is that the birds are really tightly packed and they have very little room to move. And so what they can do is sit in their litter, in their own excrement. They can move a metre one way to water, a metre the other way to food, push their way through other chickens and see other chickens around them get ill, have painful leg deformities.

MARY GEARIN: It's images like these that animal welfare activists believe should bring an end to conventional chicken meat farming as we know it, an end to the density levels and the breeding of the breast-heavy chickens.

GRAEME MCEWEN, BARRISTERS ANIMAL WELFARE PANEL: It's unquestionable that they suffer. The bird is unable to engage in normal behaviour. Nearly half a billion animals a year. It's not only the number of animals, it's the acuteness of the suffering, it's the quantity of suffering which needs to be addressed by this society.

MARY GEARIN: But some, like the director of the Animal Welfare Science Centre at the University of Melbourne, Professor Paul Hemsworth, don't believe conventional farming practices are cruel if they're followed correctly.

PAUL HEMSWORTH, UNI. OF MELBOURNE: The system per se is probably less important than we think. I think what is very important though is the management practices.

MARY GEARIN: Even when cameras are proudly allowed behind shed doors, the images might be enough to shock urban audiences not familiar with the reality of full-scale conventional chicken production, even though it's responsible for seven-eighths of an industry now with a retail value of $4.5 billion.

This whole debate has been sparked by a Federal Court case about three little words. Did some in the industry go too far and bring controversy upon their own heads by attaching the term "free to roam" to chickens grown just like these.

If you saw chicken meat advertisers coming from chickens that were free to roam, what would you take that to mean?

VOX POP: I'd take it to mean that they're free-range chickens.

VOX POP II: That they had space and I guess nice surroundings to be in.

VOX POP III: That the chickens were free range and it wasn't coming from some kind of a big chicken production factory.

MARY GEARIN: In fact the fashion model code of practice allows for chickens that have been advertised as free to roam, that is conventionally farmed chickens, to be grown exclusively in barns. That means with appropriate ventilation they can reach densities of 40 kilograms per square metre. By the end of their lives, after about five weeks, that means you could have 20 chickens weighing two kilograms each in each square metre. The ACCC case is that this doesn't lead to a situation where animals are said to be free to roam.

GRAEME MCEWEN: Most animals are not protected by state animal protection statutes. In fact they institutionalise widespread animal suffering.

MARY GEARIN: Graham McEwen is on the Barristers Animal Welfare Panel that last year raised its concerns with the ACCC.

GRAEME MCEWEN: The problem with the free to roam is that it's misleading because it suggests meat chickens are raised in conditions where they are free to roam when in fact they are not, they are anything but. They're confined to an area mostly less than an A4-size sheet of paper.

MARY GEARIN: The ACCC is taking action against Baiada Poultry and Bartter Enterprises, which supply chicken under the Steggles brand, Turi Foods, supplying La Ionica, and the Australian Chicken Meat Federation. All declined our requests for interviews.

But the head of the Australian Chicken Meat Federation, Dr Andreas Dubbs, has supplied a statement. He says the phrase free to roam was used because ...

ANDREAS DUBS, EXEC. DIR., AUST. CHICKEN MEAT FED. (male voiceover): "... it is simply one way we try to explain that meat chickens are not kept in cages and in fact are kept on the floor of large barns where can move around freely (i.e. without any barriers or fences) ... The expression "roam" is often used rather than move because to us it describes well the somewhat random movement that one observes in chicken flocks. Aiming for optimal animal welfare outcomes is important to chicken farmers, not only because of legal and societal expectations, but also because this will provide the best economic outcome for the farmer."

GRAEME MCEWEN: Why go the extra step of saying no cages but also free to roam when in fact they're not free to roam and the impression or the inference to be drawn is that it's something akin to servicing the animals' welfare, when plainly it's not?

MARY GEARIN: Professor Paul Hemsworth has been approached by the industry to supply information in this case. He says European studies have examined how the amount of space given to the birds affects their health and morbidity.

PAUL HEMSWORTH: Most of those studies indicate that space is having a relatively small influence on bird welfare. Management practices, for example, appear to be the most important factors affecting bird welfare. And so I think at the end of the day, better training and maybe auditing procedures are the best measures to safeguard welfare.

MARY GEARIN: He says roaming when it comes to these chickens is a relative term.

PAUL HEMSWORTH: It probably depends on your definition of what roaming means. I mean, these birds ... studies that have been done that suggest that they don't use a large amount of the space that's generally available for them in commercial conditions.

GRAEME MCEWEN: It may be able to stand up, but it can't for example stretch its wings or turn around. It would require about three times the area that it is presently allocated.

ANDREAS DUBS (male voiceover): "As they grow bigger, the flock takes more space and thus their movement is potentially more restricted. At what point roaming becomes impossible is a matter that ACCC has not addressed in its submission to the Federal Court."

MARY GEARIN: In his statement, Dr Dubbs has admitted ...

ANDREAS DUBS (male voiceover): "There is no point in fighting for this particular expression ... If there are clearer words to convey this message, we will be happy to use those."

MARY GEARIN: This Federal Court case might only change a few words, but animal activists want more.

GRAEME MCEWEN: I'd like to see these animals raised in conditions whereby they can engage in their natural behaviour. Ideally, they should be free range with indoor provision at night.

MARY GEARIN: In other words you'd actually like to see conventional farming abolished altogether?

GRAEME MCEWEN: Yes, can you do it with - battery hens could be made into free range production of eggs with housing indoor at night. There's nothing wrong with that.

MARY GEARIN: Dr Dubbs says this would be costly and difficult due to land use restrictions.

ANDREAS DUBS (male voiceover): "Thus we would be facing not only higher prices and substantial shortages of chicken meat, but also significant social implications, with many chicken farmers losing their livelihood."

MARY GEARIN: Activists are hoping change will come through consumer choices and leadership from retailers like Coles. It's recently expanded its RSPCA-approved line of chicken products from less densely packed sheds, but it's not planning to replace its other products just yet.

JACKIE HEALING, COLES QUALITY MANAGER: These production systems have to be developed, you have to put new sheds up, you have to get the birds, you have to grow them more slowly - all sorts of things. So it's not something you can just turn on overnight even if you wanted to.

MARY GEARIN: The industry quotes research that says that the public has good intentions when they walk into a supermarket, but they often come out with the lowest price option.

GRAEME MCEWEN: Look, the problem is with the marketing that we've seen of industry products is that at the point of sale, there is differentiation of product based upon notions of free to roam, no cages, despite the fact that meat chickens have never been raised in cages. So when you take that together with free to roam, there's one inference for the customer to draw. I think once the public realises the conditions in which these animals are raised it will weigh in their choice as consumers. What we don't have at the moment is an informed consumer choice.

MARY GEARIN: Both sides are claiming misinformation is clouding this debate. It remains to be seen if a court case will clear the air.