The Hindu Business Line : Meat prices to soar as Thailand reports bird flu

HUMAN health concerns have become a serious issue for consideration by governments in many Asian countries following detection of bird flu in a number of countries in the region.

As health authorities desperately try to control the disease, domestic meat markets are disrupted.

Coming on top of BSE (popularly known as mad cow disease) scare in the US, and the consequent ban on the US and Canadian beef, the detection of avian influenza (AI) is sure to push all meat prices higher.

Latest to join the list is Thailand, which notified that it has highly pathogenic avian influenza. This follows similar reports by Vietnam, Korea, Japan and other Asian countries. Thailand is Asia's largest and world's fourth largest poultry exporter after the US, Brazil and the European Union.

Approximately 40 per cent of Thailand's estimated production of 1.5 million tones is exported and these exports of over 5,00,000 tonnes are valued at about $1 billion, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The largest markets for Thai poultry exports (which mainly consist of uncooked processed chicken products and boneless skinless breast meat) are Japan and the EU (50 per cent and 35 per cent respectively of total exports).

Thailand supplies approximately 25 per cent of the EU imports of poultry meat from third countries (estimated at 1,72,000 tonnes in 2002 out of the total EU imports of 7,00,000 tonnes).

The largest EU importers of Thai chicken meat are the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands.

Chicken prices are down slightly this year in the EU, said Ms Nancy Morgan, commodity specialist for meat trade in FAO, adding that while a ban on Thai chicken will leave a deficit in the market for white meat going into processing, it is likely that the Brazilians, a competitive producer of similar type of product, will move to supply the gap.

In the Japanese market, domestic poultry supplies are dropping as flu infected flocks are disposed of and imports are banned from Thailand, which accounts for 30 per cent of Japanese poultry imports.