Feed shortage threatens to make meat problems in China worse
China’s protein shortage is set to worsen, The Financial Times has said, because poultry farmers have had to slaughter young chickens. It said 100 million young birds had gone to waste because of food shortages, caused indirectly by the coronavirus outbreak.
Road-blocks and other transport restrictions, set up to halt the spread of the virus among China’s citizens, have meant farmers have been unable to secure enough feed for their poultry and birds have died of starvation.
Quoting a new report from a former director of China’s national animal husbandry association, the newspaper said the situation could become worse. To try to ease the situation, the government in Beijing has given permission for importers to bring in live birds from the US, it said.
Following the mass slaughter of much of the domestic pig herd in 2019 because of African swine fever, it said the new losses threatened to worsen a protein shortage across China that has already “sparked soaring meat prices”.
