U.S. poultry and eggs exports barred from China after flu detected

U.S. exports were $272 million last year; trade group says ban is unwarranted.    The Chinese government will ban all imports of U.S. poultry and egg products because of recent detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in backyard poultry and wild birds in the Pacific Northwest.
   China is a key export market for U.S. chicken, turkey and duck products. From January through November last year, U.S. exports to China reached more than $272 million.
   “There’s absolutely no justification for China to take such a drastic action,” said Jim Sumner, president of the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council, which is in response to the detection in December of a highly pathogenic strain of H5N8 influenza in wild birds and in a backyard flock of guinea hens and chickens in Oregon, along with separate H5N2 HPAI detections in wild birds in California and Washington State.
   China’s Ministry of Agriculture and General Administration for Quality Supervision imposed the restrictions despite assurances by the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service that the influenza virus has not been found in any commercial poultry flock in the U.S.
   Sumner said “These isolated and remote incidents are hundreds if not thousands of miles away from major poultry and egg production areas.”
   USA PEEC said “For China to impose a nationwide ban in response to isolated incidents of HPAI goes against international guidelines established by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). In its Terrestrial Animal Health Code, the OIE recommends that countries adopt a regionalized approach to HPAI incidents to minimize the impact on trade.”
   APHIS notified the OIE of the Oregon detection, as required. “USDA expects trading partners to respond to this reported detection according to the OIE’s science-based standards,” the agency said in a statement following the Oregon H5N8 detection.
   China’s nationwide restrictions could have a negative impact on its domestic poultry industry, Sumner said. “Since the ban also includes U.S. 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.”