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Flu Scare over Poultry Meat Overdone: UN

Posted on: Wednesday, 24 May 2006, 10:50 CDT

By Nigel Hunt

LONDON -- The scare over poultry meat sparked by bird flu has been overdone, particularly in low-risk areas such as Europe, and farmers have paid a very heavy price, analysts and industry officials said on Wednesday.

"The shock we are seeing is way out of proportion to the risk. Consumers are not very much at risk from this disease," said Anni McLeod of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

"The people least at risk are causing a large proportion of the problem," she told World Poultry 2006, a conference organized by Agra Informa, an agricultural publishing group.

McLeod, a senior officer in livestock policy, cited Europe as one area where the reaction of consumers had been out of proportion, noting how demand fell by 70 percent in Italy after one outbreak.

The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed more than 120 people since late 2003, the vast majority in Southeast Asia. Human cases have been linked to direct or indirect contact with diseased birds rather than consumption of poultry.

Poultry consumption and prices had tumbled across the world in recent months, causing widespread financial losses in the sector, analysts said.

McLeod cited Nepal as a country where there had been no outbreaks but demand had fallen in local poultry markets.

LOST JOBS

Alexandre de Campos, export sales director for Brazilian poultry producer Sadia, said the crisis has cost thousands of jobs in Brazil even though the country had remained free of the deadly virus and local poultry sales had remained strong.

Brazil and the United States are the world's two leading exporters of poultry.

"There are no winners globally," he added, noting sales of Brazilian poultry to Europe had fallen significantly during the first quarter of this year.

Maryse Saboulard, agricultural economist with France's national meat board Ofival, said the response among consumers had been much more marked in Italy, Spain, France and Greece than in countries such as Germany and the UK.

She noted poultry demand in France had fallen sharply after an outbreak at a farm on February 23. There had been a 30 percent drop in consumption in March.

"It was suddenly becoming very scary for the population," she said of media coverage of the outbreak.

FAO's McLeod said total losses had been greatest for industrial and large commercial poultry companies but many smaller producers had been unable to repay debts.

She also noted that in Vietnam some small farmers had also found it hard to comply with increased biosecurity requirements.

"There are certainly a lot of people who are now involved in the poultry industry that will drop out," she said.

Source: REUTERS

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