China’s government has said it will ban the importation of US egg and poultry goods after being made aware of a type of influenza that has been detected in wild birds and poultry in the Northwest Pacific region.
Despite being assured that the virus had not been detected in any US poultry, Chinese officials decided to ignore the US Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s advice by imposing restrictions, according to the Journal of Commerce.
US exports of poultry products to China totalled US$272 million from January to November, 2014, making China a key export market for US domestic poultry.
Jim Sumner, President of the US Poultry & Egg Export Council, said: “There’s absolutely no justification for China to take such a drastic action. In fact, these isolated and remote incidents are hundreds if not thousands of miles away from major poultry and egg production areas.
“Most of our other trading partners have taken some sort of regionalised approach, and have limited their restrictions to the state or, in some cases, to the county. We would have expected China to do the same.”
Sumner thinks that this decision could harm China’s domestic poultry industry: “Since the ban also includes US breeding stock, China is cutting off its industry’s main source of hatching eggs and chicks, which will curtail the industry’s ability to replenish and maintain its production.”
China in US Bird Shock Horror. (Source: Natural Action Technologies)