H7N9 hits poultry farmers in a dilemma that they can't afford to raise and sell.

The stalls selling poultry in a vegetable market in Huaibei City, Anhui Province are deserted.

Workers at a farm in Longhai City, Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, throw unsalable duckling seedlings into an incinerator. Photo taken by Zhang Bin

Farmers: the situation is very difficult now.

Farmers in both epidemic and non-epidemic areas are suffering from bad luck, and large and small households are struggling.

At 4: 00 p.m. on April 28, Wanshou Pavilion Farmer Market, downtown Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. The live poultry stall, which used to be full of people, is now empty. According to the owner of the stall selling poultry eggs, before the government ordered the shutdown, some operators went out of business one after another. "I really can't go on!" Although the poultry egg stall is not closed, business is poor. Sister Peng, who has been selling eggs for more than 20 years, said that she used to be able to sell 70 cases of eggs a day, but now she can't sell 20 cases, and she can't even afford the stall fee.

Consumer attitude has always been the weather vane of the market, but also the most direct reflection of the impact of the epidemic. The reporter randomly interviewed several citizens at the farmers' market, and most of them said that they were now "discolored by the smell of poultry" because of one human infection after another, and would not buy poultry meat immediately after bird flu.

The sales channel is not smooth, which hurts the upstream farmers. The first to fall are those individual farmers who have weak anti-risk ability.

"Comrade reporter, have you reflected it to us?" On April 29, the reporter received another call from Chen Weichun.

Chen Weichun is a duck farmer from Xiangshan County, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. In 2001, he and his wife came to Daludu Village, Wanan Community, Jiangning District, Nanjing City, to raise ducks for 12 years. On April 28, when they saw the reporter's visit, Chen Weichun and his wife seemed to see a little light in the haze. Their gloomy faces smiled and took the reporter by the hand, as if they had endless words.

"the situation is really difficult right now." Chen Weichun's wife, Gan Aifang, said that ducks cannot be sold. They have all become old ducks. As soon as you depilate, you won't lay any eggs, but you can't lose the feed. "now we can only rely on selling duck eggs, but the price of duck eggs is also falling." She said she lost 120000 yuan in April alone. "what do you say we do now?" Holding a duck feather, Gan Aifang said while weeping.

It is difficult for small households, and life for large ones is also difficult.

"25300 broilers are handled and sold, and the normal wholesale price is 12.8yuan / jin, but now the sales price is only 3.3yuan / jin; egg products are sold at 34200 jin, the normal selling price is 13.8yuan / jin, and the processing price is only 3.3yuan / jin. The loss is expected to reach more than 10 million yuan. " On April 27, in the face of an interview with the reporter, Chen Xihang, deputy general manager of Zhenning Animal Husbandry Co., Ltd., Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province, calculated the loss account with a heavy heart. The largest high-quality chicken breeding enterprise in Zhejiang Province originally produced 5 million native chickens a year, mainly supplying the Shanghai-Hangzhou-Nanjing market. However, after early April, the live poultry trade in the three places was gradually suspended. From April 6 to 25, the enterprise lost 3.1167 million yuan in 17 days, with an average daily loss of more than 180000 yuan.

In Guangdong, where the epidemic has not yet been discovered, farmers can also find it hard to escape their doom.

Several chicken farms are scattered on a remote hill in Yaogu Town, Yunfu City. Zhao Huoquan, the owner of the chicken farm, said that he had lost hundreds of thousands of yuan due to the H7N9 epidemic. "what I raise is mainly 'three yellow chickens'. The cost of each chicken is about 25 yuan. now I have to lose 10 yuan for each chicken I sell, and if I don't sell it, I will lose 25 yuan. the longer the breeding time, the higher the cost. This is really a dilemma."

Zheng Huidian, deputy director of the Guangdong Provincial Department of Agriculture, said that the impact of H7N9 bird flu on Guangdong's poultry industry has exceeded that of SARS in 2003 and bird flu in 2004. It is estimated that the daily loss of poultry farms in Guangdong Province has exceeded 100 million yuan.

Government: stabilizing the poultry industry and boosting confidence

Support policies have been issued one after another, and the industry has actively saved itself, but the situation is still grim.

In the face of the difficult situation of the poultry industry, Zhejiang issued a series of support policies in time to actively guide the industry to save itself. On April 16, Zhejiang issued the Circular on actively responding to H7N9 Avian Influenza to support the sustained and healthy Development of the Poultry Industry. Poultry farms with valid "license for production and operation of breeding livestock and poultry" shall be given a production maintenance subsidy of 15 yuan per farm, and an one-time financial subsidy shall be given to poultry farms. Subsequently, Hangzhou, Wenzhou and other cities combined with reality, have introduced supporting subsidy policies. Dai Xuming, deputy director of the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau of Zhejiang Province, said that the subsidy policy is being actively implemented and is expected to be implemented one after another within more than 10 days of the May Day short holiday.

In addition to subsidies, the government also encourages leading enterprises to increase the collection and storage of live poultry. The Nanjing Municipal Committee of Agriculture held a forum attended by industry associations and 10 leading agricultural enterprises to guide enterprises to increase collection and storage. On April 17, six processing enterprises in Nanjing docked with 20 large-scale poultry farms in Liuhe District and reached an agreement to purchase more than 30,000 meat ducks per day. Wen's Company in Lishui District purchased 580000 farmers' broilers at a purchase price of 10mur12 yuan / kg, ensuring the reasonable profits of farmers.

In the face of the sharp decline in the market and the lack of consumer confidence, some local government officials have also made "moves" to become poultry salesmen. The mayor of Qingyuan City, Guangdong Province, once led chicken raising enterprises to give a feast and became the first prefecture-level city mayor in Guangdong to support farmers and take the lead in eating chicken. Since then, the market has improved somewhat, but it is still difficult to reverse the situation.

Under the active guidance of the government, poultry breeding enterprises also began to save themselves, and the farms and cooperatives developed in the direction of "chilled sales". All these have played an important role in stabilizing the poultry industry, boosting market confidence and promoting the long-term and stable development of the industry.

However, with the spread of the epidemic, the situation of the poultry industry is still not optimistic. Dai Xuming told reporters that although Zhejiang is doing everything possible to combat the epidemic, subsidies are stronger than ever, but as long as the epidemic does not go out, enterprises will only be more difficult. He calculated an account for the reporter: at present, the average daily feed cost of a chicken and duck is about 50 cents, and a subsidy of one or two yuan can only feed for a few days; for poultry enterprises under key policy protection, the subsidy of 15 yuan each can help enterprises support for a month at most; originally, there were 39 million breeding chickens in Zhejiang, but now only 8 million are still hatching. "if the epidemic continues for another month or two, we may not be able to eat live poultry for a long time in the future."

Jin Liang, deputy researcher of the Animal Husbandry Department of Zhejiang Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau, told reporters that in the process of encouraging enterprises to process fenced poultry, Zhejiang exposed the problem of insufficient slaughtering capacity. Affected by the consumption habits of the people who are used to buying live poultry, there are fewer poultry slaughtering sites in the province, and many workers on the slaughtering line have resigned after bird flu. Even if many enterprises want to process the pressed chickens and ducks into chilled ones, they also need to first transport them to other slaughterhouses, then transport them back to the local slaughterhouse in a freezer and rent them for storage. Once again, the cost will double, and they would rather be treated innocuously.

Dai Xuming said that at this stage, although the "responsibility" of leading enterprises has minimized the losses of many farmers and farmers, "only in but not out" has put them under great financial pressure, which will have a great impact on the resumption of production in the poultry industry in the future. Now, some small and medium-sized local leading enterprises have broken the capital chain.