"Drakanthus" wrote in message
...

An example of the above was egg production. My father kept hens in "deep
litter". Not quite the same a free range but a thousand times better than
battery - basically in a large room where they run around and forage in
woodshavings etc. He was making a modest return on the sale of eggs. Then
along came the "Egg Marketing Board" with legislation that required all
eggs
to be sold through them. They also dictated the price that would be paid
to
producers of those eggs.

Not quite correct. You could opt out and sell your eggs privately, but you
could not put the little lion on those you sold as 'Farm Fresh'.

'IF' you decided to sell your egs to the EMB then yes they dictated the
price.

I too had chickens on Deep Litter but sold as Farm Fresh. I don't seem to
remember any of my eggs going to EMB.

It soon became apparent that it was costing my
father more to produce the eggs than he was getting paid for them. So he
had
no option but to stop production and sell the hens. The only producers
that
made a return on egg production were those doing so intensively. Hence the
rise of battery farming and hens spending their entire lives in cages
little
larger than they are.


Yes I go along with you here :-(

Mike