Guangdong Chicken Industry: sales of live chickens have shrunk by half, and prices have fallen to 1x3 of cost.

"The fog is too thick to see clearly!" Liao Qianzhang, the owner of the chicken farm, described the market prospects for the next step. He looked at the vague hill in the distance and forced a bitter smile.

This is a barren slope beside Jinzhu Village, Baini Town, Sanshui District, Foshan City. Liao Qianzhang has raised chickens here for 10 years, but in recent years, business is difficult to do. Two consecutive waves of H7N9 avian influenza epidemic, broiler market depressed, prices dropped to freezing point, Liao Qianzhang and several partners lost more than 2 million, the market has not shown obvious signs of recovery. Just like entering the Pearl River Delta in March, not only did it not usher in warm spring flowers, but it was a cloudy day connected with a cloudy day, and everywhere was shrouded in misty haze.

Like Liao Qianzhang's chicken farm,"fog" also covers more than 3000 poultry farms of all sizes in Sanshui and even the chicken industry in Guangdong. The reporter's investigation found that since March last year, the sales volume of live chickens in Guangdong has generally contracted by more than half, and the appearance price once fell to 1/3 of the cost. The industry has lamented that "the chicken industry may be experiencing the biggest industry crisis after 1997", enterprises and chicken farmers almost no loss, and some places even appeared poultry enterprises closed down phenomenon.

Two waves of shock, chicken enterprises lose a lot, can't sell, workers don't want to come

Liao Qianzhang's account book, Detailed record of the daily price quotation and shipment volume, He pinched two thick skin crack fingers, The account book page by page to reporters to see: "Chicken cost per catty calculated down 5 yuan more than a little, To now still can not protect this; In previous years this time migrant workers back to the city, Is the highest price, Best sell time."

Sanshui is an important breeding base for broilers in the Pearl River Delta. Liao Qianzhang's chicken farm covers an area of more than 150 mu, with an annual output of 700,000 - 800,000, sold to Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan and Foshan. Business was doing well, but at the end of March last year, bird flu broke out, and the price dropped from 5.3 yuan to 5.4 yuan per catty to 1.6 yuan. "Every chicken sold loses more than 10 yuan."

Liao Qianzhang and his "old friends" gritted their teeth and endured it. Seeing that the market gradually recovered its vitality, prices also rose bit by bit. By September, they began to make money. But with August, September, Guangdong and other places have been found infected with H7N9 positive cases, the second wave of shock and surge,"just flash waist, not good, and flash again." The price dropped back to more than 2 yuan." He said with a smile.

Liao Qianzhang had no choice but to reduce the amount of breeding. Behind him were neat chicken sheds lined up in a row. They looked tall and magnificent. However, when he opened the curtains and walked in, he found that several sheds were empty except for a layer of sterilized white lime on the ground. "We have 58 sheds in total, and now only 6 sheds have chickens, all of which are newly caught chicks. There won't be adult chickens to sell until May." A partner sighed and kept more than 40,000 chickens that had only been raised for more than 40 days. He dug a pit and buried them. "My heart hurts. There's nothing I can do. One chicken eats 0.3 yuan a day. 40,000 chickens eat 12,000 yuan a day. If we keep raising them, we'll lose even more."

Liao Qianzhang joked that chickens are now in a state of "three noes": losing more, no money; not selling, no market; panic, no workers. His chicken farm, which used to employ 20 workers, now employs fewer than 10. "I'm afraid chickens will be infected with avian influenza." For the first batch this year, Liao plans to raise only 100,000, half the number in regular years.

This is actually a microcosm of the entire chicken industry in Guangdong. Poultry industry analyst Li Jianxiong summed up the average daily trading volume of Guangzhou Jiangcun and Taihe poultry wholesale markets over the past three years: 75,600 and 65,800 respectively in 2011, 94,800 and 73,800 in 2012, and fell to 48,000 and 44,000 in 2013. "The industry is in a state of overall loss and presents a chain reaction." Chen Yingfeng, president of Guangdong Province Poultry Industry Association, said that due to the rapid decline in broiler consumption, sales appeared losses; led to the decline in chicken seedling sales, supply losses; loss effects were transmitted to parents, ancestral breeding enterprises.

Wen Pengcheng, chairman of Guangdong Wenshi Food Group Co., Ltd., one of the largest poultry breeding enterprises in China, revealed that since last year, the group's chicken industry has suffered a huge loss of 1 billion yuan. Such losses will have a stronger impact on small companies and farmers."Many people never dreamed of encountering such a big crisis." Wen Pengcheng said.

Reduce production, reduce market volume, do epidemic prevention well to ensure the safety of listed chickens

Yunfu, where Wen's Group is located, accompanied more than 40,000 chickens raised at home by Mr. Lian for a panicky Spring Festival. Now, these chickens have passed the normal breeding period of 120 days. Because Wen Group is forced by the market to delay the collection of chickens, Mr. Lian is calculating losses every day, but he has to continue waiting.

In December last year, Wen held an emergency seminar on H7N9 avian influenza incident, requiring subordinate chicken companies to strictly implement production reduction plans, slaughter broilers for storage, humanely destroy chicken seedlings and other means, greatly reduce the number of listed, and actively respond to the shrinking impact of the consumer market. The production reduction plan started in January this year, and the number of chickens has been reduced by about 20% compared with usual.

Wen has 160 subsidiaries, and the output of Sanhuang chicken accounts for about 1/5 of the whole country. Although the scale is large, it is still like walking on thin ice. The majority of small and medium-sized enterprises and farmers 'days are even more difficult. In order to survive the crisis, Guangdong chicken industry is actively responding.

Huang Yonglu, president of Kaiping City Poultry Industry Association and deputy general manager of Shenhuang Group, introduced that Kaiping mainly adopts two methods, one is to sell at a lower price to the market that is not so sensitive to avian influenza; the other is to reduce production, and many farmers directly slaughter chickens raised for fifty or sixty days.

In addition to reducing production, it is to do a good job of epidemic prevention with higher standards to ensure the quality and safety of listed chickens. "You have to be tough to forge iron." Liao Qianzhang said, Chicken farm has the whole process of epidemic monitoring means: As soon as chicken seedlings come in, To complete chicken plague, Influenza and other a set of immunization procedures; At ordinary times chicken coop to regular disinfection, Spray disinfection water; After a batch of chickens out, The whole chicken coop should be re-cleaned, Spread white lime disinfection before entering new chickens,"After so many years of breeding, People are fine, Chicken is fine."

Huang Tiande, deputy director of Sanshui District Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Bureau, introduced that they regularly sent people to each chicken farm for inspection and sampling inspection, blood samples directly sent to Foshan City unified monitoring; especially when chickens go out to do a good job of origin quarantine, all chickens with inspection certificates into the market, to ensure that problem chickens are not listed. "Sanshui has a market volume of 40 million a year, but no problem has been found so far."

The government has also given corresponding subsidies. Last year, in addition to the relevant subsidies issued by the central government and Guangdong Province finance, local agricultural bureaus also applied to the municipal government for subsidies for local poultry farming. The reporter learned from the Agriculture Department of Guangdong Province that Guangdong Province will arrange more than 100 million yuan of subsidy funds, mainly used for maintenance subsidies for poultry farm production, enterprise subsidies for new collection and storage of poultry products and discount interest for relevant loans for poultry breeding enterprises.

Restore consumption confidence, strengthen science popularization propaganda, and improve the level of aquaculture in the long run

"Since February 18, market conditions have improved, sales and prices have picked up." Huang Yonglu said,"At the most serious time, Selling a chicken to lose 12 to 16 yuan, Now the price has been adjusted back some, Loss correspondingly reduced."