According to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), avian influenza viruses have been found on farms in 29 states in the United States. On May 3, the U-Top Research Institute forwarded an exclusive report from CCTV Finance under the title of "Bird Flu Superimposed on Inflation, the U.S. Poultry Supply Chain Becomes an "Inflation Chain"".
First, the most serious avian influenza epidemic in history?!
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said it was the worst outbreak of bird flu in the U.S. since 2015 and double the coverage in 2015.
Note: The 2015 avian influenza outbreak was the worst in U.S. history at the time, affecting more than 48 million poultry in 15 states between December 2014 and June 2015.
The avian influenza outbreak has also spread to two North American neighbors of the United States. On 27 April, mexico's Ministry of Agriculture notified the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) of an outbreak of H7N3 highly pathogenic avian influenza in Mexico. On May 4, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) officially confirmed that poultry in the Kelowna and Richmond areas had been tested positive for the pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus.
In addition, Europe is also facing an H5N1 avian influenza outbreak, and the virus brought by wild birds that migrated last autumn is still hitting the vast majority of the EU's 27 member states. France, in particular, is facing its worst ever crisis of avian influenza, with a total of 16 million poultry culled since the outbreak of bird flu last November.
However, the French Ministry of Agriculture believes that the outbreak of avian influenza in France reached its peak at the end of March and is gradually decreasing.
Second, what is the impact of U.S. poultry trade to China?
The United States is the world's leading producer of meat, poultry and egg poultry, and exports a large amount of poultry meat and poultry by-products to the world every year. According to the international rules for trade in livestock and poultry products, the emergence of large-scale avian influenza in the United States can easily lead to a decline in poultry breeding capacity, thereby severely damaging the U.S. poultry industry.
According to the relevant media reports, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, China and Taiwan have all taken measures such as suspending the import of poultry meat and poultry products (including poultry eggs) from areas with highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks such as the United States in accordance with the Notification of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).
The outbreak of avian influenza in the United States and Europe has a greater impact on the import of chicken feet, chicken wings and other by-products. At present, China's poultry products imported from the United States are mainly frozen chicken feet and frozen chicken nuggets with bones. According to data from the General Administration of Customs, in 2021, the total amount of poultry meat imported from the mainland will be about 1.44 million tons. Among them, frozen chicken feet 767,000 tons, accounting for 53%.
Entering 2022, the total import of poultry meat in the first quarter of the mainland was 152,800 tons, and the import volume was less than half of the first quarter of 2021, and the decline was very obvious. However, in March 2022, the import volume of poultry meat from the mainland was 51,900 tons, down 25% year-on-year, but with a 10.77% increase from the previous month.
Third, the impact of U.S. poultry meat exports to China
According to the information on the official website of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Research Institute has confirmed that the United States has adopted relevant restrictive measures on poultry meat export enterprises in the affected areas in accordance with the bilateral inspection and quarantine requirements of China and the United States on meat trade, and the export of U.S. poultry products to China has also been affected.
At present, 23 of the 50 states in the United States have affected the normal poultry meat trade in China due to the outbreak involving commercial farms.
Among the 550 U.S. poultry meat registered enterprises in China announced by the General Administration of Customs of China, 229 enterprises have been affected to varying degrees by exporting poultry meat products to China.
Among them, North Carolina (35), Texas (32) and Iowa (20) ranked in the top three in terms of the number of affected companies.
Number of plants affected by avian influenza in the continental U.S. states
Fourth, the epidemic situation is slowing down, and the trade of imported poultry meat has stabilized and rebounded?!
At present, although the AVIAN influenza epidemic in the United States is still continuing, it has clearly passed its peak.
According to the imported U.S. poultry meat data released by the General Administration of Customs, the first quarter of 2022 showed a trend of first falling and then rising, with the total import amount in the first three months reaching 36.937 million yuan, 11.166 million yuan and 15.84 million yuan respectively.
Of course, according to the analysis of Youding special editor, the low total import volume in February also has other factors affected by the regular off-season such as the Spring Festival holiday. At present, the specific import situation in April has not yet been announced, but due to the impact of epidemic prevention and control in major port cities such as Shanghai in April, there are still many uncertainties about whether the final data can be idle.