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Almost two months ago, the Argentinian poultry industry woke up with the news that avian flu was detected in their territory. That prompted authorities to stop exports in adherence to the international guidelines, among other actions.
Local authorities – the Argentinian Ministry of Foreign Relations, the National ag safety agency (Senasa) and the Ministry of Agriculture – are working to recover poultry export markets. Slowly but surely exports were reinitiated, first with egg products to Japan. Now, it has just been announced that Singapore accepted the proposal of receiving poultry from areas free of avian flu, accompanied by a veterinary certificate. Uruguay said the same thing. All this is for certain products, mainly processed, but in a way, they are compartmentalizing. Russia, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and some African nations agreed to receive fresh chicken from areas not affected by avian flu.
Argentina is also working on reestablishing exports to other trade partners, particularly of products like powder and pasteurized egg products, viscera hydrolysates, processed meats, and maybe most importantly, exports of poultry genetic material to other Mercosur countries and Mexico.
But what is the meaning of all this? I think on the one hand, it is the fact that the industry and authorities in Argentina are putting things together to restore normality in exports. Compartmentalization (if we can call it that) may be the way to go. It must be mentioned that all these markets are not very big for Argentinian poultry exports. In fact, Argentina is not as much of a super export power as neighboring Brazil, but it means willingness to fix things as well as being able to export that surplus, that otherwise, would negatively impact local chicken prices. In addition, there are few companies in Argentina fully relying on exports, so domestic market is what matters. Also, let us remember that Argentina is a very important corn and soybeans producer.
Discussions on whether to vaccinate or not against avian flu are prowling around. Many say there is no way to get out of this situation without vaccinating the long-live birds, such as hens and breeders. But vaccinating would mean loosening exports, even if they are not as large as Brazil’s.
Many are asking for a change in the global scenario.
What do you think?
