I was pretty positively surprised to read âIn Brazil, where large-scale cage-free production didnât exist a decade ago, about 15% of hens are now cage-free.â So I hope Iâm wrong about the point below.
To me the article cited seems to instead say just that Mantiqueira, the largest egg producer in Brazil, has almost 15% cage-free production (and will reach 20% with the additional of 3 new cage-free units discussed in the article), not that total Brazilian production is 15% cage-free. (A Bloomberg article suggests the company has 5% organic and 15% âhappyEggsâ for a total of 20% cage-free production.)
Other sources seem to suggest the total Brazilian hen population is closer to 5% cage-free (e.g., the Latin American Egg Institute says 95% caged referencing 2023 production). Luiz Mazzon, president of the Certified Humane Brasil Institute in an article in May 2024 said âIn Brazil, 5% of egg production comes from cage-free or free-range farmsâ, and this 2023 paper says the same thing (95% in conventional cages). Though this is where it was in 2019 (see this 2019 government-associated report) so maybe theyâre all referencing old data, not that the share of cage-free production hasnât increased at all (though also consistent with cage-free production increasing, just not as much as non-cage free production increased)
Itâs still great that the largest egg producer reached the 2.5M cage-free hen goal a year and a half ahead of schedule, and doesnât take much away from the genuine progress in cage-free. I assume these statistics above are old data and donât capture some of the progress thatâs happening and the projected increase in cage-free from the 35 cage-free commitments that have been fulfilled & 56 reporting (according to ChickenWatch). If you (or anyone in Brazil) have another source on the 15% thatâd be really encouraging to read.
Thanks Neil. Good catch, and sorry Iâm only replying nowâI hadnât checked the Forum over the break. I assumed that the original article was referring to all cage-free production because:
The 15% cage-free immediately follows a claim referring to all Brazilian production: âThis type of production did not exist in Brazil until 2017. Mantiqueira was the first one. Seven years later, [cage-free] production represents almost 15% of the total.â
The next sentence reads: âWe were a driving force.â This implies they were a driving force in an industry-wide change, and doesnât really make sense if it refers to their production, i.e. âWe were a driving force in getting ourselves to go 15% cage-free.â
But I think this could be a translation issue. And I donât have any other sources, while the sources you found seem more likely to be accurate. So I suspect youâre right that sadly Brazil has made less progress thatn we thought.
I was pretty positively surprised to read âIn Brazil, where large-scale cage-free production didnât exist a decade ago, about 15% of hens are now cage-free.â So I hope Iâm wrong about the point below.
To me the article cited seems to instead say just that Mantiqueira, the largest egg producer in Brazil, has almost 15% cage-free production (and will reach 20% with the additional of 3 new cage-free units discussed in the article), not that total Brazilian production is 15% cage-free. (A Bloomberg article suggests the company has 5% organic and 15% âhappyEggsâ for a total of 20% cage-free production.)
Other sources seem to suggest the total Brazilian hen population is closer to 5% cage-free (e.g., the Latin American Egg Institute says 95% caged referencing 2023 production). Luiz Mazzon, president of the Certified Humane Brasil Institute in an article in May 2024 said âIn Brazil, 5% of egg production comes from cage-free or free-range farmsâ, and this 2023 paper says the same thing (95% in conventional cages). Though this is where it was in 2019 (see this 2019 government-associated report) so maybe theyâre all referencing old data, not that the share of cage-free production hasnât increased at all (though also consistent with cage-free production increasing, just not as much as non-cage free production increased)
Itâs still great that the largest egg producer reached the 2.5M cage-free hen goal a year and a half ahead of schedule, and doesnât take much away from the genuine progress in cage-free. I assume these statistics above are old data and donât capture some of the progress thatâs happening and the projected increase in cage-free from the 35 cage-free commitments that have been fulfilled & 56 reporting (according to ChickenWatch). If you (or anyone in Brazil) have another source on the 15% thatâd be really encouraging to read.
Thanks Neil. Good catch, and sorry Iâm only replying nowâI hadnât checked the Forum over the break. I assumed that the original article was referring to all cage-free production because:
The 15% cage-free immediately follows a claim referring to all Brazilian production: âThis type of production did not exist in Brazil until 2017. Mantiqueira was the first one. Seven years later, [cage-free] production represents almost 15% of the total.â
The next sentence reads: âWe were a driving force.â This implies they were a driving force in an industry-wide change, and doesnât really make sense if it refers to their production, i.e. âWe were a driving force in getting ourselves to go 15% cage-free.â
But I think this could be a translation issue. And I donât have any other sources, while the sources you found seem more likely to be accurate. So I suspect youâre right that sadly Brazil has made less progress thatn we thought.