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2120 final report.pdf - Agra CEAS Consulting

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THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF THE VARIOUS SYSTEMS TO KEEP LAYING HENSA1.5. FranceA1.5.1. OverviewFrance will implement the prohibition on egg production in unenriched cage systems set out inDirective 1999/74/EC from 2012 having transposed the Directive in 2002. France is Europe’s largestegg producer (18%). In 2002 the country had 47 million hens in production, 7.9 million of which werebred in alternative systems. This figure has been increasing in recent past years. Eggs sourced fromalternative production accounted for 20% of egg volume consumption and 34% of eggs sold in superand hyper-markets.Production is relatively dispersed and carried out in relatively small-holdings. Eggs are graded inpackaging stations in which several producers are grouped. Marketing is concentrated in three largegroups, which represent around 80% of total egg marketing. These groups establish contracts withlarge retailers, through which they guarantee an annual average price to the producers. Theprofitability of the sector is low and even negative in certain periods.An increasing proportion of French egg production is processed by the egg products industry. In 2002this proportion was 30%. This industry has been the responsible for the change in the egg sector asegg production has remained constant.Trade in eggs and egg products represents only a small proportion of French production. The overallegg trade balance has been positive, mainly due to the trade in processed egg products; the trade inconsumption eggs has on the contrary had a negative trade balance.Total per capita egg consumption in France is expected to remain constant at around 255 eggs peryear. Generally processed egg product consumption is expected to increase, while an equivalentreduction in the fresh egg consumption is expected.A1.5.2. Egg productionFrance is the EU’s largest egg producer producing some 15.1 million consumption eggs (992,000 t) or18% of EU production in 2002.The egg cluster for 2002/03 is represented in Figure A1.21 below which indicates that at this pointthere were 49.1 million hens in 2,100 holdings. Production is therefore relatively fragmented with anaverage of 23,300 hens per holding. On the other hand, there are 560 packaging stations,representing an average of 3.75 holdings per station. 85% of all eggs produced (13.3 million) arepackaged in these stations. National egg consumption is 15.4 million eggs, indicating a slight surplus of1.2%. The foreign trade balance is positive (0,2 million eggs), mainly due to the positive egg producttrade balance. Per capita consumption has been rising slightly due to an increase in the egg productconsumption, while fresh egg consumption has been diminishing.161

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