All the eggs that are being sold on the market match the quality standards, Minister of Agriculture says

All the eggs which are being sold on the market meet the health and safety standards, said Mihail Dumitru, the minister of Agriculture, quoted by Agerpres. The statements come following the information recently provided by the animal protection organization Vier Pfoten, which discussed the way egg-laying hens are raised in cages (batteries) and the eggs originating from hens raised in this way, which were all marked with the number "3".

He said: "This number allows consumers to choose whether they want to consume eggs laid by hens raised in the open air or eggs originating from hens raised using intensive breeding. All the products on the market are checked for safety, and they do not therefore pose any threat to the safety of people. This is where the debate starts, and it is one that I for one have trouble seeing a point to. And I believe that as long as a certain breeding system is allowed, not only in Romania but in the EU and in the rest of the world as well, eggs produced by hens bred using that specific system can be sold on the market without any problems".

Romania, just like any other member states of the European Union, is currently in a transition period which will end on January 12th, 2012 during which all poultry farms will invest in replacing and modernizing their old breeding batteries.

The Board of Directors of The Union of Poultry Farmers in Romania - UCPR recently said it intends to sue the Vier Pfoten organization, as well as the Romanian Food Research Institute (ICA), led by Gheorghe Mencinicopschi, and will claim damages to compensate for the drop in the sales of eggs laid by hens raised in cages, as a result of the statements made by the two institutions.