With chicken farms across the US hit by what US media outlets have called “the worst avian influenza on record,” the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine yesterday said that it has banned the import of chicken products from 15 US states identified as areas affected by the outbreak.
Bureau Director-General Chang Su-san (張淑賢) said that if an outbreak occurred in another US state, the bureau would add it to the list and block its raw and processed chicken imports.
The outbreaks in the US could spread nationwide, in which case the bureau would consider banning all chicken products from the US, she said.
A report published yesterday by Fox News called the outbreaks of H5N2 and H5N8 subtypes in the US “the worst outbreak of bird flu on record,” saying that as many as 33 million chickens have been — or are expected to be — destroyed.
Of the 15 US states on the prohibition list, Arkansas and Kansas have the highest output of chicken products, Animal Husbandry Department Deputy Director Wang Chung-shu (王忠恕) said.
However, the prohibition has not yet affected chicken prices in Taiwan, he said, adding that many chicken vendors have reserves that they obtained earlier this year to prevent possible shortages due to local avian flu outbreaks that led to a massive chicken cull.
Chicken vendors had imported more than 70,000 tonnes of chicken from the US before the outbreaks, which would be sufficient to meet the nation’s demand over the next three months, he said.
Even if a shortage in chicken products from the US were to affect Taiwan’s overall supply of chicken, broiler chickens raised domestically would soon be able to close the supply gap, as broilers take just five weeks to mature, he said.
However, even with the nation’s stable supply and demand, there is no guarantee that the cost of chicken will not rise, as prices are determined by market factors, Wang said.
The Council of Agriculture said that the nation consumes more than 900,000 tonnes of chicken annually, with 70 to 80 percent farmed domestically.
Chicken from the US constitutes about 100,000 tonnes of annual imports and represents more than 10 percent of the nation’s overall supply, it said.
Additional reporting by Sean Lin
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
TAKE BREAKS: A woman developed cystitis by refusing to get up to use the bathroom while playing mahjong for fear of disturbing her winning streak, a doctor said People should stand up and move around often while traveling or playing mahjong during the Lunar New Year holiday, as prolonged sitting can lead to cystitis or hemorrhoids, doctors said. Yuan’s General Hospital urologist Lee Tsung-hsi (李宗熹) said that he treated a 63-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙) who had been sitting motionless and holding off going to the bathroom, increasing her risk of bladder infection. Chao would drink beverages and not urinate for several hours while playing mahjong with friends and family, especially when she was on a winning streak, afraid that using the bathroom would ruin her luck, he said. She had
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry
RSS