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Report
No.230905 |
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- International - |
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Japan Halts Poultry Import from the United Kingdom The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) on April 29 announced Japan places import of poultry and poultry meat from the United Kingdom under temporary halt as of the same day. This is done in the wake of an outbreak of avain influenza there. Japan imported 375,000 day-old chicks or some 37% of all import from the United Kingdom (in 2005). MAFF considers "an immediate impact on the poultry farms here can be avoided," by switching the import source to the United States and others and also by prolonging the period of using both parent and breeding poultry of domestic origin (according to the Livestock Production and Feed Division of Agricultural Production Bureau). Japan imports one million day-old chicks in a year and the United Kingdom is a major supplier. Imports are under temporary halt also from Germany, France and the Netherlands due to bird flu. These countries together with the UK supplied some 80% of day-old chicks import to Japan last year. Domestic importers are already taking steps to find alternative sources of import to replace import from the European Union countries and MAFF estimates that there is not going to be major difficulty in the switch-over. Also, Japan has a stock of 7,300,000 day-old chicks and the size of the stock is another reason why impact of the import halt is seen rather limited. Because the envisaged import has been for replacement, the MAFF's Livestock Production and Feed Division is calling on the industry to use breeding poultry 3 months longer than usual period of 7 -8 months. After the cabinet meeting on May 9, Mr. Shoichi Nakagawa, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, revealed his intension to give instruction to develop good parent poultry within the country saying "dependence on a limited number of countries for the supply of parent poultry could constitute a risk factor on food security." His comment was made reflecting a sense of crisis which could arise out of inability to import parent and breeding poultry, a lifeline for the Japanese poultry industry. After some days, it was reported that the bird flu was caused by a strain with lower pathogen and appropriate measures are being taken to prevent it from spreading around and outside the area, according to the information from the UK government. MAFF, therefore, decided to apply the import suspension limitedly to the state where the flu broke out. |
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