Brazil hopes China other countries may loosen trade bans over bird flu

BRASILIA – Brazil’s poultry industry is reeling from the country’s first bird flu outbreak on a commercial farm, but officials are hoping that China and other major consumers will soon loosen countrywide bans on importing Brazil’s chicken.

If the world’s largest chicken exporter can contain the outbreak in its southernmost state, then China could follow the example of Japan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to limit bans to only that state’s chicken, government officials said.

“Since global demand is very strong, it’s likely that there will soon be some flexibility,” said Mr Luis Rua, international secretary at Brazil’s Agriculture Ministry. “We are doing our part to quickly share information, so things aren’t suspended for long.”

Brazils chicken exports account for more than 35 per cent of global trade, making a nationwide ban painful not just for Brazilian farmers but also major importers.

Brazil provides over half of China’s chicken imports, Brazilian Agriculture Minister Carlos Favaro said, with much of the rest coming from the US.

A devastating US bird flu outbreak and wider trade tensions with Washington have limited Chinese appetite for American poultry. China now blocks poultry from more than 40 US states over bird flu, according to US government data.

Brazilian farmers are also counting on warm relations between President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Chinese President Xi Jinping to ease the poultry trade ban.

Mr Renan Augusto Araujo, senior market analyst at SP Global Commodity Insights, said the outbreak threatened to reduce Brazilian chicken exports by 10 per cent to 20 per cent, depending on how quickly the outbreak is contained and consumers loosen trade bans.

The Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, where the outbreak was flagged on May 16, is the country’s No. 3 chicken producer and had already suspended exports