France is to ban from the end of 2021 the hugely controversial but widespread poultry industry practice of systematically slaughtering male chicks, Agriculture Minister Didier Guillaume said Tuesday.

“The aim is to oblige firms… to do this by the end of 2021,” he told BFM television, expressing hope that a method could be found that works on a large scale to determine the sex of an embryo in the egg rather than as now, after hatching.

Guillaume also announced that within a similar time frame, France would ban the castration of piglets without anaesthetic, another measure long urged by animal rights activists.