Farmers in a flap over egg prices

Press, 31 January 1983, Page 9

Farmers in a flap over egg prices

NZPA Brest. France More than 30.000 hens

freed by farmers angry over falling egg prices swarmed through the streets of three Brittany towns yesterday, waking residents and colliding with cars. The police in Brest. Morlaix and Landivisiau reported that passing cars squashed dozens of hens, but there were no injuries to humans.

"Because we can no longer feed our hens, we prefer to set them free," said Yves Auffret, the president of the National Federation of Egg Producers. The federation wants to slaughter two to three million laying hens to reduce the production of eggs and drive up prices. But the French Agriculture Ministry has refused a demand by the farmers that they be reimbursed for the loss of the slaughtered hens.

About 150 farmers let eight trucks of hens loose in the streets of the three towns. said federation officials.

The protest was after nation-wide elections for France's Regional Agriculture Co-operative councils. Final but unofficial election results gave 64 per cent of the vote to the country's largest agricultural union, the National Federation of Farmers Unions. The national federation, which represents the country's larger landowners, opposes the Socialist Government’s efforts to encourage the growth of several Leftwing ‘alternative unions, which won a total of 23.3 per cent of the vote.