Russia faces trade sanctions as it battles bird flu

Several nations, including the United Arab Emirates, Belarus and Kazakhstan have restricted poultry imports from the affected regions of Russia, which include Kursk, Samara and Orel.

Major Russian companies Cherkizovo – the second largest broiler meat producer – and Damate have been considerably affected in recent weeks. In spite of allocating $50m in biosecurity measures, Cherkizovo has had to cull all poultry stock at its Vertunoskyi farm, which produces hatching eggs for the internal market.

Russian media have reported that the company has had to cull nearly 300,000 birds or between 7-10% of its total parent flock.

Damate, which is Russia’s largest turkey producer, has also suffered considerable losses. It had to cull all 470,000 birds or 10% of its total turkey population following an outbreak of bird flu at a poultry farm in Penza Oblast.

Global Meat News reported that the company had reported it would not be able to achieve the growth in production volumes originally scheduled for the coming months. It had planned to maintain levels at between 5,500 and 6,000 tonnes per month.

Meanwhile, Iran has this week reported that about 450,000 chickens have died of H5N8 since March 20 with 17 poultry centres affected across 15 provinces. Iran lost over 25m birds to bird flu in the last fiscal year.

And in Ghana an outbreak had led to the culling of 12,000 birds in cases in the Ashanti, Eastern and Greater Accra regions.