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| Animal rights activists stage a performance addressing the problem of factory farming of chickens in Korea during a protest in Seoul, Friday./Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
By Kim Se-jeong
Amid a fast-developing egg contamination scandal in Korea, experts and animal rights activists argued the root cause is factory chicken farming, which is common here.
All the eggs containing insecticide chemicals were produced at farms with huge numbers of chickens being raised in limited spaces.
"Because there are so many chickens in such a small space, more must have been exposed to insecticide," Kim Sun-cheun, a toxicologist based in Gangwon Province, said of the cause of the scandal.
According to statistics, 99 percent of 1,400 chicken farms in Korea, keep the poultry in small cages inside buildings. According to CARE, an animal rights group based in Seoul, the surface area of a cage for each bird is 20 cm x 25 cm, smaller than an A4-sized paper. They have no contact with the outdoors until they're sent to be slaughtered and then buried.
"By nature, chickens get rid of ticks and fleas by rubbing themselves in dirt. In the cage they can't do that. And a constant struggle with ticks increases their stress level and decreases immunity which sometimes kills them," CARE said in its statement. "Also, what happens to ticks and fleas is that they develop tolerance to insecticide, meaning the farmers have to use a stronger form of insecticide over the years."
The group raised the same issue in the past.
It insisted the intensive farming was to blame for the avian flu outbreaks. The worst outbreak earlier this year saw almost one-fifth of the nation's poultry flocks culled, and the government, out of urgency, imported eggs.
"The answer to all these problems is to stop the factory farming and provide the poultry with an environment where they feel at ease," the group said.
For many farmers in Korea, natural farming is a distant dream because it requires a decent amount of land, which most farmers cannot afford. Also, in a densely populated country, raising animals outside often triggers conflicts between farmers and neighbors over odor and noise. For these farmers, factory farming is the most effective and profitable way to do business.
Factory chicken farming is not unique in Korea. It is done in other parts of the world, and is growing particularly fast in Asia.
The Guardian recently quoted a report saying that a growing number of factory farms in Asia contribute to global health risks.
CARE said one way for Koreans to free chickens from cages is by reducing egg consumption. "Koreans eat a lot of eggs, especially in processed food. It's too much."
