Brazil has halted all chicken exports to China after a virulent poultry disease was found on a commercial farm, expanding a previous ban and dealing a blow to meat packers including BRF SA.
The self-imposed restrictions — which also include a full ban on exports to the European Union and Argentina — may curb total chicken shipments by as much as 15 percent while in place, according to producers group ABPA. The move comes after the world’s largest chicken supplier detected Newcastle disease at a farm in Rio Grande do Sul state.
The South American nation is also suspending exports of chicken, eggs and other poultry-based products from the southern state, which borders Uruguay, to other countries including China, India, South Africa and Mexico, according to a notice issued by the ministry.
Newcastle disease, which is highly transmissible among birds but doesn’t affect humans, typically prompts major importing countries to raise bans on imports of chicken from infected regions. That would deal a blow to the likes of BRF SA, Brazil’s largest chicken producer, which has been recovering from a poultry industry downturn.
Shares of BRF closed down 7.9 percent on Thursday, the biggest loss since November. Marfrig Global Foods SA, which controls BRF, fell 9.1 percent, the most since late 2022. JBS SA fell 2.5 percent.
Brazil’s Agriculture Minister Carlos Favaro said one chicken tested positive for Newcastle disease, which attacks the respiratory, nervous and digestive systems. The collapse of a roof in a coop after a storm may have exposed the chicken to the virus, which can be found in infected wild bird faeces, he told reporters on Thursday.
“This seems to be an isolated case,” Favaro said. “There’s no sign of sick animals in the area, let alone in the region.”
Newcastle disease was last found in backyard birds in Brazil in 2006. There have been no previous reports of the illness in commercial flocks in the country, according to data from the World Organisation for Animal Health.
by Clarice Couto, Bloomberg
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