(SRN NEWS/REUTERS/97.5 GLORY FM) – It’s the Georgia poultry industry’s worst nightmare: an outbreak of bird flu among commercial poultry flocks. And it’s happening to Brazil’s poultry industry now.
That country’s poultry exports fell in both value and volume in May from a year earlier, government data shows, as trade restrictions following a bird flu case weighed on the sector.
Herlon Brandao, director of Statistics and Foreign Trade Studies at the Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade and Services, said at a press conference that poultry exports had been on the rise before the outbreak, the first on a commercial farm in Brazil.
In May, poultry exports fell 12.9% to $655 million, while volumes declined 14.4% to about 363,100 metric tons.
Poultry exports from Georgia last year, excluding eggs, totaled 66,104 metric tons with a total value of $63.75 million, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.