When Daniel Abiliba was growing up in northern Ghana, caring for animals was part of his daily life. He shepherded cows before school. His family had a donkey, dogs, goats, cattle, and assorted poultry. Animals to him were associated with chores and family possessions.
But Abiliba’s understanding of animals has deepened over time. His Catholic faith, inspired by Saint Francis of Assisi, as well as his veterinary studies led him to start “thinking about them as beings, or as creatures that act on their own.”
Abiliba is now a veterinary surgeon and the director of the Animal Welfare League. The Animal Welfare League is one of the growing number of African organizations campaigning for alternatives to cages for egg production. Though this can be a sensitive subject in countries where protein consumption remains relatively low on average, cage-free advocates see health, ethical, and economic benefits to allowing chickens more space. “I think the future is cage-free,” Abiliba says. “I’m really excited about the work and the model we’ve started in Ghana.”
Recent Growth In Egg Production And Consumption
Rates of chicken caging vary greatly across Africa. In South Africa, nearly all layer hens spend their lives in cages. Egypt also has a more industrialized model of egg farming, while in Uganda, this is largely small-scale. In countries where egg production has taken off relatively recently, the challenge is not about moving chickens away from cages, but ensuring that cages don’t become the norm in the first place.
Ghana and Rwanda are two interesting examples here. After independence from the United Kingdom in 1957, the Ghanaian government sought ways to increase the population’s protein intake. Under Operation Feed Yourself in the 1970s, as part of a package of agricultural self-sufficiency measures, the government provided day-old chicks. “This program significantly increased local egg production in communities,” Abiliba says.
Still, “the behavior was natural.” Chickens would roam around the home during the day and sleep in coops at night. Feed was mostly local. In subsequent decades, with the establishment of state-owned commercial farms, egg production largely stayed cage-free. But as commercial farms became bigger and privatized, cages started coming into Ghanaian egg production in the 2000s and 2010s, Abiliba says. Yet many Ghanaians believe that chickens are still largely raised in backyards or cage-free systems.
Similarly, while Rwandan egg production has traditionally been a matter of subsistence farming, since about 2010, “now it is coming to be industrial,” says Janvier Twambazimana, the director of farming operations and partnership management for Abusol, one of the largest egg producers in Rwanda. In addition to Abusol’s own farm of around 130,000 layer chickens, the company has a network of over 100 farmers.
While animal protein was a luxury for Abiliba’s family when he was growing up in rural Ghana, it is now much more accessible. “There is this craze for animal protein” among young people now, he says. “Consumption of eggs has become so common.”
Jean Claude Masengesho, a veterinarian who leads the Rwandan Animal Welfare Organization (RAWO), says that within the last decade, the Rwandan government encouraged a shift from cattle to smaller animals like chickens. Programs like One Egg Per Child, Everyday sought to increase egg consumption as a way of reducing malnutrition. Eggs went from a special food, reserved for the rich, to a more affordable and accessible source of protein. In multiple African countries, governments as well as international organizations have been promoting increased egg consumption, says Aurelia Adhiambo, the Africa lead for the global Open Wing Alliance. Animal welfare has generally not been factored into these programs.
But because poultry farming is relatively new, Masengesho believes that some people are not well informed about how to treat chickens. He says that young farmers often feel that cages are better, in part because of agricultural companies’ aggressive marketing of cages as modern and desirable (a trend seen across Africa). And if farmers amass a lot of debt to build caged facilities, it’s difficult for them to change course, even if they want to shift after witnessing caged chickens losing feathers and clearly stressed by their conditions.
RAWO provides farmer workshops to provide more information about healthy and humane egg production. “We are trying from every angle,” Masengesho says. On economic and health grounds, they point out that more antibiotics are needed on caged farms. On ethical and religious grounds, they communicate about animal suffering and the importance of good stewardship.
In Ghana, the Animal Welfare League also works directly with farmers, with site visits, veterinary supports, and links to corporate outreach. This includes demonstrations of the high productivity possible in cage-free systems. There are now over 150 farmers in their cage-free network. Abiliba was surprised to see that farmers have been mainly motivated by animal welfare. Some farmers say they wouldn’t want to be put in a cage themselves, keeping them from doing what came naturally.
The Rwandan company Abusol decided to stay cage-free not only to reduce animal suffering, but also because it could see how the global winds were blowing, Twambazimana says. Abusol saw that Europe and the U.S. were moving in a cage-free direction, and because Rwanda is a hub for global meetings, they knew that someday cage-free animal products would be needed. Though Abusol was already cage-free in practice, RAWO worked with Abusol to create an official commitment to cage-free production. In Ghana, the Animal Welfare League has also been obtaining cage-free commitments from large egg suppliers.
Apart from global concerns about animals’ wellbeing and health in tightly packed cages, some African contexts also make caging especially harmful to chickens. Rising temperatures are making conditions more challenging for chickens in cramped, confined spaces. As well, “in many parts of Africa, the electricity infrastructure is not so reliable,” comments Adhiambo of OWA, who is based in Nairobi. Power cuts lead to deaths of animals in industrialized farms, and make it hard to maintain needed conditions in caged systems. And as in the U.S., egg prices in Kenya have been soaring recently (though in Kenya the main culprit is pricey chicken feed sold on uncompetitive markets rather than bird flu).
Though it’s very dependent on the context, overall “there are challenges that are unique to Africa that maybe can make cage-free production harder,” Adhiambo acknowledges.
Challenges To Cage-Free Egg Production
Research commissioned by the Animal Welfare League in Ashanti, Ghana has found that battery cage farmers have a slight edge over non-cage farmers in earnings, though both types remain profitable. In Rwanda, according to Twambazimana, prices for caged and cage-free eggs are comparable. However, keeping hens out of cages does require more land, which Twambazimana expects to become less affordable within the next decade.
Another challenge will be the abrupt loss of U.S. foreign assistance to support economic development and reduce malnutrition in Rwanda’s poultry sector. Among other activities, this funding provided zero-interest loans, high-quality chicken breeds, and advice to new farmers. USAID had been the main nonprofit player in Rwandan agriculture, Twambazimana says.
So even more of the focus may shift to the private sector. RAWO and the Animal Welfare League have both been approaching hotels about cage-free commitments. In South Africa, the restaurant chain Nando’s now uses 100% cage-free eggs (the figure in North America is 0%). “Consumers have a big impact” in encouraging more humane farming, Masengesho says. “It’s a long journey, I’m telling you…You have to go slow.” One reason for this gradual approach is to address the criticism that animal welfare is a Western mindset.
Adhiambo says that many cage-free advocates in Africa started from a passion for spreading animal welfare messages when these weren’t mainstream. But while certain large businesses may be supportive, it’s been harder to reach individual consumers. Some messaging has occurred through social media, workshops, and billboards, however.
One issue with catering to consumers of cage-free eggs in Africa, where they exist, is labelling. In Ghana and other countries, egg sales are often made in the informal sector, for instance in outdoor markets. These kinds of sales can be a lifeline for low-income vendors. Yet buyers have little way of knowing the source of their eggs. The Animal Welfare League has found workarounds, such as connecting businesses buying eggs directly with cage-free farms. They’re also collaborating with organizations including Global Food Partners on introducing cage-free certification in Africa.
Member groups will need to work with legislators and others to develop cage-free standards, Adhiambo says, pointing to some positive engagement in Tanzania. “There has to be government buy-in for successful development of these standards.”
In general, in the global cage-free movement, “Africa is really taking up space and growing,” Adhiambo believes. “We are really a continent to watch out for.”
This article is part of a series on cage-free transitions in animal agriculture. The other articles in the series explore cage-free progress in Europe, Asia, and the United States.