The majority of the world’s eggs come from Asia, where over 800 billion are produced each year. These eggs are laid by more than three billion hens who are predominantly kept in battery cages — cramped wire cages that barely allow them to move, let alone carry out important natural behaviors like foraging and dust-bathing. Key egg-producing countries in Asia include China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand.

Farming animals in cages is a major concern for animal welfare, and getting farmers to stop using cages is a central focus for animal advocates. Many European countries are transitioning away from caged eggs, but Asia lags behind in both commitments to ending the use of cages and progress towards cage-free production.

This study investigates the perspectives of Asian egg producers on the feasibility of adopting cage-free systems, including the barriers they face and their views on potential solutions to these challenges. The researchers adopted a mixed-methods approach using a survey that asked both closed and open-ended questions. This allowed for quantitative as well as qualitative analysis to gain insight from a total of 202 producers across the key egg-producing countries. Of these, 165 were producers with cage systems and 37 were cage-free producers.

For the purpose of the study, cage systems were defined as the use of wire cages to house laying hens inside sheds, while cage-free systems included indoor housing in sheds (which can have one or more levels) and free-range systems. The researchers chose to focus on the responses from the producers with cage systems.

Across all countries, most producers (53%) identified ease of management as the primary reason for using cages. In their view, cage systems are more efficient, maximizing egg production and land use while reducing costs. This aligns with other research showing that U.K. cage systems produced 5 to 7% more eggs per year compared to cage-free systems, and costs for cage-free systems in the U.S. were about 23% higher than cage systems.

Not surprisingly, then, barriers to adopting cage-free systems centered around land availability, higher production costs, management, and disease mitigation. Concerns about land availability were present even in China (identified by 15% of producers there), a country at least five times as large as the other countries in the study.

Despite these perceived challenges, around two-thirds of producers consider cage-free systems to be at least somewhat feasible in their country, and 93% of producers identified at least one reason to adopt cage-free systems. The most common reasons included improving hen welfare (30%) and gaining access to a specialized market with brand differentiation (21%).

However, when asked whether cage-free systems are feasible, views greatly differed between countries. Three-quarters of Thai producers disagreed, while all Malaysian respondents agreed to at least some degree. This is particularly striking as, currently, nearly 100% of eggs produced in Malaysia come from caged hens — representing a unique opportunity for animal advocates at work there.

To overcome the barriers to cage-free production, respondents identified industry development, such as technology, knowledge-sharing, and policy support, and market development, including price increases and increased demand, as key solutions. Most producers (79%) agreed that they would need at least some support to make the transition, with technical advice (23%), training and resources (23%), and financing (16%) being the most cited.

Producers rated governments as the most popular choice for providing support (55%), while they rated advocates as the least popular (2%). This can be explained through some of the proposed solutions, such as one Indonesian producer who stated that a government policy of setting upper price limits on eggs discourages producers from transitioning away from cages.

Although these producers were resistant to advocates, there are significant opportunities for advocates to influence governments by lobbying, offering guidance, and providing resources to drive legislation that phases out caged egg production.

Even if legislation doesn’t exist, consumer demand for higher-welfare eggs is increasing in these countries, and advocates can build on this momentum. With previous research showing that over two-thirds of egg consumers in China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand feel that hen welfare is important to them, producers may be incentivized to shift towards cage-free production to meet growing consumer demand. Moreover, there are increasing numbers of commitments from multinational food companies to source cage-free eggs, providing further motivation to move away from cages.

The authors suggest several initiatives to promote cage-free egg production in Asia, including:

• Demonstrate the commercial viability of modern cage-free farms;
• Improve efficiencies and management practices in cage-free farms;
• Upskill farmers and provide technology to improve welfare and management in cage-free farms; and
• Partner with government and industry to overcome the barriers raised and support the transition to cage-free farms.

While this research was an initial, foundational study, it does provide useful insight for advocates to understand key actions needed to end caged egg production in Asia. By promoting animal welfare policies for governments and businesses, animal advocates can indirectly influence caged egg producers and drive forward the transition towards cage-free egg production.