Japan lacks space to bury chickens killed by bird flu

hong kong
CNN
—

Japan has lost so many chickens to bird flu that there is now no land to bury them.

Japanese Public Broadcasting NHK reported on Tuesday that 16 of the country’s 26 prefectures do not have enough land to properly dispose of slaughtered birds. All 26 said they had recently experienced outbreaks of avian flu.

While local authorities and farms typically kill and bury animals to prevent further spread of the virus, land shortages have now hampered those efforts, according to NHK.

Japan is struggling with a record of the outbreak bird flu in recent months, putting a strain on poultry supplies and driving up the price of eggs.

More than 17 million chickens have been culled this season, the highest number on record, NHK reported on Tuesday.

Japan previously slaughtered nearly 9.9 million people in fiscal 2020 in another bird flu crisis, its latest record.

In a report this month, Rabobank said global egg prices had “reached historic highs” in the first quarter of 2023, citing the impact of bird flu in all countries and rising hen feed costs .

Between mid-2020 and mid-2022, global feed prices doubled, largely due to the fallout from The Russian invasion of UkraineIt said.

Today, world prices “are 2.5 times higher than the base year 2007 and are up more than 100% since this time last year,” wrote Nan-Dirk Mulder, senior protein analyst. animals at Rabobank.

The situation has prompted some people around the world to buy your own chickens to secure their own supplies of the pantry staple.

In Japan, egg prices hit a 10-year high of 235 yen ($1.8) last month, according to Rabobank.

“Prices in many other markets also reached historic highs, including Thailand, the Philippines, Israel, New Zealand, Nigeria, Kenya, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina,” it said. he declares.

The situation should not improve much this year.

While countries like Japan and the United States may have already seen price spikes, “we expect prices to remain relatively high throughout 2023, especially in markets heavily impacted by the bird flu, high costs and regulatory changes,” Mulder wrote.

“In other markets, there will be some price decline, but not to pre-2021 levels, as persistently high input costs keep prices higher.”

Bird flu is caused by infections that occur naturally in wild waterfowl, according to the Centers for Disaster Control and Prevention. Infected birds can transmit the virus to other animals through their saliva and other bodily secretions.