The price of a chicken could rise to between €10 and €25 if all of the poultry recommendations put forward by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) are implemented, the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) claims.

On broilers, the EFSA said that the stocking rate of houses should be dropped from 39kg/m² to 11kg/m² and growth rates limited to a maximum of 50g/day.

IFA poultry chair Nigel Sweetnam told the Irish Farmers Journal that the proposals are completely unworkable and devoid of any practical basis.

The recommendations will completely erode the efficiency gained over successive decades of farmers improving their practices, he stated.

'Potential to destroy'

“It has the potential to destroy the whole Irish poultry industry and drive the cost of producing a broiler between €10 and €25, because if we reduce stocking rate by a quarter, the cost implications are beyond stupid,” commented Sweetnam.

“The banning of transport of live chicks and the energy implications of heating a house to 36°C for two days prior to the hatching - there’s no practicalities to the whole thing at all.

“The real killer here is the limiting of growth rates to 50g/day. At peak, we are currently achieving around 100g to 120g/day.”

Around twice the volumes of feed will be needed to achieve the same carcase weights under this growth rate limit, Sweetnam estimated from the IFA’s analysis of the proposals.