No place to bury chickens killed by bird flu in Japan

As Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported, 16 of the country’s 26 prefectures have fallen ill with bird flu, leaving no place to bury killed chickens.

It was reported that the efforts to combat the epidemic were interrupted because there was no place to bury the chickens in the country, where local authorities and ranchers killed animals to prevent the spread of the epidemic.

17 million chickens killed

Japan has been struggling with the bird flu epidemic that has emerged in many parts of the country in recent months. While the epidemic is putting serious pressure on the supply of white meat, egg prices are also climbing.

It was stated that this figure is a record in Japan, where 17 million chickens were killed this season alone. The last record was in fiscal year 2020, when 9.9 million chickens were killed due to bird flu.

Global feed prices doubled

Netherlands-based Rabobank, in its report published this month, drew attention to the fact that global egg prices reached historical record levels in the first quarter of 2023, and cited bird flu in many countries and high feed prices as the reason.

Between mid-2020 and mid-2022, global feed prices had doubled due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“Global prices are 2.5 times higher than in 2007 and have increased by 100 percent since last year,” said Nan-Dirk Mulder, senior analyst at Rabobank.

Egg prices at the highest level in the last 10 years

While egg prices, which reached $1.8 in Japan, were at the highest level in the last 10 years, the Rabobank report said, “Similarly, record prices are seen in Thailand, the Philippines, Israel, New Zealand, Nigeria, Kenya, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.”