Under the Impact of Avian Influenza, Visiting the Current Situation of Chicken Farmers in Our City

The sudden outbreak of H7N9 has plunged the previously promising chicken farming industry into a slump.

How big a blow has been dealt to the more than 20,000 chicken farming households in our city? Yesterday, reporters visited two chicken farms in Yuanlin Village, Kecheng, to look into their current business situation and hear their thoughts and hopes.

Wu Guoyi: Most Eager for the Epidemic to Pass Soon

In a grove on a small hillside, more than 3,000 free-range chickens were busily pecking for food in the drizzling rain. They had no choice but to eat desperately, as their meals had been cut from twice a day to once a day.

“This way we can save on costs. Some eggs that can't be sold are even boiled and used as feed.” said chicken farmer Wu Guoyi. “There's no telling when the avian influenza will end, so we can only find ways to reduce costs and cut losses.”

An Account He Never Dares to Calculate Carefully

How much loss will H7N9 bring to Wu Guoyi? He has never calculated it. “I don't dare to, and I don't want to calculate it carefully.”

Wu Guoyi said he mainly sells free-range eggs. Previously, green-shelled eggs sold for 2 yuan each, now 1 yuan each; free-range eggs sold for 1.5 yuan each, now 0.8 yuan each (or even lower, 0.5 yuan each).

In the past, he sold at least 1,000 eggs a day, bringing in more than 1,500 yuan. After deducting more than 600 yuan in feed and labor costs, he could still make some money each day.

Now, both the chickens and the eggs are sitting unsold, costs are rising every day, and psychological pressure is mounting every day.

Wu Guoyi said: “Under normal circumstances, a free-range chicken is fed twice a day, at a cost of about 0.3 yuan. After switching to one meal a day, the cost is nearly 0.2 yuan. For 3,000 chickens, the daily living expenses come to about 600 yuan, which means 18,000 yuan a month.”

“We individual farmers can bear it in the short term, but if it drags on, we definitely can't hold out. Farmers with tens of thousands of chickens face even worse conditions and enormous losses.”

Now, the first thing Wu Guoyi does every day is haul some fresh eggs to surrounding areas for retail sale.

“As long as someone asks and haggles, I'll sell no matter how many cents it is, so the money can keep circulating and I can stock up more feed. If I'm lucky, I can sell more than 400 eggs a day (800-plus at most), at prices ranging from 0.5 to 1 yuan, bringing in about 300 yuan a day. But after deducting labor, fuel and meals, I end up losing about 300 yuan a day. If I'm unlucky and sell only a few in a day, I'll lose more than 500 yuan.” Wu Guoyi said.

For an ordinary family farming household, this is not a small sum.

“So far, I haven't seriously calculated how much I've lost in total. I just want to sell the eggs quickly.” Wu Guoyi said. Now, more than 10,000 eggs have piled up, and the number still grows by about 400 every day. This is what worries him most.

Feeling “Market Risk” for the First Time

“After the avian influenza, broiler chickens are almost unsellable. Since Qingming Festival, I've only sold two free-range chickens.” Wu Guoyi said: “Compared with eggs, I'm not too anxious about selling free-range chickens. I can wait until this period passes and the price of chickens rises before selling. Of course, being able to sell two in this situation and make a start is enough to make me happy for several days.”

Speaking of the current broiler chicken sales situation, Wu Guoyi feels he isn't doing too badly, since his scale isn't very large after all.

Wu Guoyi said that a company in our city signed an agreement price with local farmers -- buying each chicken at 5.5 yuan. Now, the company is selling at an extremely low price of 0.5 yuan per chicken. If it sells 100,000 chickens, it will lose at least 500,000 yuan. What to do? If it doesn't sell, it will lose even more! Five years ago, 34-year-old Wu Guoyi started out by borrowing 100 chickens. Now he has expanded to more than 3,000. Last year, his net profit was more than 100,000 yuan. During the interview, he told reporters that his business had been fairly smooth in recent years, and he had even felt that “perhaps his pace of development was a bit slow.”

This avian influenza made Wu Guoyi feel market risk for the first time.

He said: “Farming scale should not be expanded blindly; you have to act according to your means. Otherwise, the more you raise, the more you lose. In business, you have to watch the market, and you also need luck.”

For the past month, what Wu Guoyi feared most was hearing on TV: “Please try to avoid contact with poultry and poultry droppings.” What he most wanted to hear was, one day, the TV saying: “Viewers and friends, chicken and eggs are safe to eat now.”

Chen Fanglong: Still Optimistic About Market Prospects

Compared with Wu Guoyi, chicken farmer Chen Fanglong, in his twenties, suffered much smaller losses in this avian influenza outbreak. That's because his business model is “base + farmers + company,” with a purchasing company as his backing.

Basically Unaffected by Avian Influenza

In 2011, Chen Fanglong and his wife returned to their hometown and opened a chicken farm, contracting 300 mu of mountain land and raising a full range of free-range chickens including mountain chickens, silkie chickens and royal chickens. A year later, profits were considerable.

The next year, Chen Fanglong began cooperating with a boss, with Chen Fanglong raising the free-range chickens and the boss mainly handling sales. Before Spring Festival, of the 3,000 free-range chickens Chen Fanglong raised, 2,500 were sold through the boss. Now, only 500 free-range chickens remain on Chen Fanglong's farm, producing about 200 eggs a day. He takes them to Nanhu Market and sells them at 1.5 yuan each, and can basically sell them all. That's about 300 yuan in income a day, while daily feed costs are about 150 yuan, so selling eggs nets him about 150 yuan a day. Because the number of free-range chickens is not large, avian influenza has had little impact on him.

Optimistic About the Market, Orders 2,000 More Chicks

“Farmers with large numbers of chickens aren't so lucky.” Based on Chen Fanglong's understanding of his peers, broiler chicken farmers have been hit relatively hard by avian influenza.

A friend's chicken farm has thousands of broiler chickens waiting to be sold, but consumers dare not buy them, making the chickens very hard to sell. If calculated at 3,000 chickens, each requiring 0.3 yuan of feed a day, that's 900 yuan in daily costs, or 27,000 yuan a month. Feed expenses are enormous, yet the chickens' weight doesn't increase quickly, so these farmers lose the most.

“Although avian influenza has had a certain impact on the farming industry, I'm still optimistic about market prospects. In June, I plan to order another 2,000 chicks.” Chen Fanglong said. Besides, the price of chicks is now half of what it was before, dropping from 3 yuan per chick to 1.5 yuan per chick.

“After the avian influenza passes, chicks will definitely be more expensive than in previous years, but most farmers are still taking a wait-and-see attitude.” Chen Fanglong said. In business, where there is “danger,” there is “opportunity.” Right now, everyone dares not easily order chicks. After this crisis passes, farmers will place orders in a concentrated rush, and then chick prices will rise. He remains fairly optimistic about market prospects.

(Reporters Mao Yitao, Zheng Jingjing; Intern Hong Panhong)