A2O-L«nca«ter Farming, Saturday, October 17, 1998
China’s Bout With AX Still Concerns
Worldwide Poultry Industry
ANDY ANDREWS
Lancaster Fanning Staff
MANHEIM (Lancaster Co.)
About 900 million people live on
“farms” in China, a country that
holds 20 percent of the world’s
population.
China is the world’s leading
pork producer at five times the size
of the U.S. and number two in
world production of meat poultry,
according to Dr. David Kradel,
poultry health consultant and coor
dinator of die state’s renowned egg
quality assurance program.
With a huge population that
relics heavily on open markets to
sell live birds and is slow in deve
loping western-style methodolo
gies to handle diseases, this could
spell concerns for the poultry
industry worldwide.
Kradel spoke to more than two
dozen industty representatives
Monday at the Poultry Manage
ment and Health Seminar at Kreid
er’s Restaurant in Manheim.
In September, Kradel traveled
to China along with two nutrition
ists and a manufacturing represen
tative under the auspices of the
American Soybean Association
(ASA). The group toured China’s
several large poultry-producing
regions, including laboratories and
processing plants.
Kradel said that he was sur
prised to see that China, in terms of
total land area, is actually smaller
than the U.S. Only 10 percent of
the land is tillable, home to about
1.3 billion people, five times the
population of the U.S.
About 70 percent of the total
population lives in rural areas and
arc classified “fanners.’’ Of the 1.3
billion people, “I'm sure there’s
that many bicycles, too,” Kradel
said, since the cities ate congested
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ASA sees the value in such a
venture and maintains an active
presence in China. Grain compa
nies export soybeans (four million
tons) and soybean oil meal (about
two million tons) annually into
China. Ninety percent of the soy
beans they feed to poultry comes
from the U.S.; only about 10 per
cent of the oil meal comes from the
U.S. (India’s prices undercut
U.S.).
Kradel and the ASA-sponsored
group took part in two-day semi
nars in five different locations:
Beijing, Shanyann, Shanghai,
Guandong (which exports chick
ens to the nearby Hong Kong
market, and Hong Kong. When it
was over, Kradel learned about
some of the progress the industry
has made and how it has tackled
some of the issues, including the
worldwide industry concerns
about avian influenza (A. 1.)
“I really enjoyed the experience
and the trip," he said. “I was glad to
come back home, though, as
almost anyone is.”
China, he said, is moving in the
direction of “trying to be more
open” yet is only slowly accepting
western-style industry technology
and health management protocols.
The farm and business infrastruc
ture is “very complex,” he said,
and the politics are intrinsic in
almost all aspects of the industty.
However, many western com
panies, including those from the
U.S., are actively involved in joint
ventures with the growers in some
parts of the country.
China is number one in the pro
duction of eggs, tripled in the past
for years over the U.S.
There are three types of farms in
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the country: the household or
backyard farms, with one to four
sows and a small flock of chickens;
a specialized household farm with
1,000-2,000 broilers at five cycles
pefyear; and modem poultry pro
duction units, in a government
venture (at least 40-50 of them in
operation, Kradel noted).
Of the large ventures, several
companies hold a good bit of the
48 percent market share, with
Arbor Acres on top at 32 percent,
Hubbard at 8 percent, and others.
In the country, 700 farms man
age typical populations of
1,500-10,000 broilers per farm in
growouts under contract. The
flocks are raised along with mink
dead chickens are a source of
mink feed.
China is making little use of
imported western-style technolo
gy, especially in the area of poultry
health. On a tour of the Shanghai
region, Kradel discovered at one
lab site, “they were doing very,
very little.” He looked into an
incubator and saw there was “not
one plate in there,” he said, com
pared to the stacks of plates found
in a typical U.S. poultry health lab.
What is the Chinese govern
ment’s “official” position cm A. 1.?
“They don’t have it," Kradel said.
But several A.I. serotypes have
turned up from chicken out of the
Guandong region, so “they
undoubtedly do have it,” Kradel
said.
The biggest concerns: the pre
sence of the HSNI A.I. virus, the
first reported virus that actually
spread from birds to humans.
In 1997, of 18 cases of human
infestation of the poultry virus, six
people died. It's uncertain how
those people became infected
other than they handled birds in the
live markets on a consistent basis.
Family members. Mends, and co
workers who had contact with
those exposed didn’t come down
with the disease.
Exactly how the virus spread
from poultry to humans is still
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under investigation. However,
Kradel noted that research in Wis
consin shows that swine can pick
up the disease from poultry and
transmit it to humans. And there
are a lot of hogs -in China.
Hogs are the only species “that
can take avian influenza from
poultry and reassert it... as a
type pathological to avians and
humans,” said Kradel.
hi Honk Kong, 1.7 million birds
were depopulated in the live bird
markets. The cleanup and disinfec
tion was successful. Now, trucks
are stopped and blood samples of
birds are taken on a mandatory
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But according to Hong Kong
experts, the HSNI virus taken out
of the country is the “most patho
logical A.I. ever seen,” with 100
percent mortality to birds in a
24-hour time .period. This is a
“very significant problem” for dis
ease in poultry and the human
population, said Kradel.
Kradel provided an overview of
the virus, symptoms of disease,
and the risk the live bird markets in
the U.S. still pose to the industry,
with a hundred of them in New
York and New Jersey areas alone.
“We have to do what we can to
make sure it doesn’t come back
into commercial flocks,” Kradel
said. “We have to keep working
with the USDA and so forth,”
noted Kradel, to learn more about
how to control the virus. There is a
need to be “as biosecure as we pos
sibly can,” he said.
Show Results
JUNIOR YEARLING HEIFER: Blake Bru
baker.
FFA/4-H JUNIOR YEARLING HEIFER:
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JUNIOR 2-YEAR-OLD COW Heather
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FFA/4-H JUNIOR 2-YEAR-OLD COW:
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SENIOR 2-YEAR-OLD COW. Crystal Bru
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FFA/4-H SENIOR 2-YEAR-OLD COW:
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3-YEAR-OLD COW: Crystal Brubaker.
FFA/4-H 3-YEAR-OLD COW. Crystal Bru
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4-YEAR-OLD COW. Heather Brubaker.
FFA/4-H 4-YEAR-OLD COW: Heather
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5-YEAR-OLD COW Heather Brubaker.
FFA/4-H 5-YEAR-OLD COW; Heather
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DRY COW New Directions Holstein*.
FFA/4-H DRY COW New Directions Hol
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SENIOR GET OF SIRE: New Directions
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BEST THREE FEMALES: Heather Bru
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DAIRY HERD: Heather Brubaker. 1
BEST UDDER; Heather Brubaker.
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