Sao Paulo | Reuters — Chicken meat exports from Brazil have fallen slightly year-on-year in May, trade data from the government showed on Monday, after the country logged a case of bird flu on a commercial farm.
Why it matters: Brazil is the world’s largest chicken exporter.
Brazil, the world’s largest chicken exporter, said on May 16 it had identified a bird flu outbreak on a commercial farm in the southern city of Montenegro, triggering nationwide or regional trade bans from dozens of countries.
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The list includes China, the largest buyer of Brazil’s chicken in 2024, as well as top clients South Africa, the Philippines, the European Union and Mexico.
Exports of “fresh, chilled and frozen poultry meat and edible offal”, a category mostly made of chicken meat, had been up 0.2 per cent year-over-year in the first three weeks of the month, before most of the trade bans started to kick in.
But for the first four weeks of the month, that trend reversed, falling 1.5 per cent to an average of about 19,900 metric tons per day, data showed.
Itau BBA analysts wrote in a note to clients that negotiations between Brazil and the countries which banned the purchase of Brazilian chicken will dictate the extent of the negative impacts on the trade.
“The situation tends to worsen if new cases emerge, but even if it is restricted to just this one, we believe that exports will decline at least in the next month,” the analysts wrote.
Brazilian authorities hope that a 28-day observation period, which started last Thursday, will show its chicken farms are free of the disease.
