After the fast-growth chicken scandal, Shandong Liuhe stops buying chickens, farmers suffer heavy losses
Because of the impact of the chicken "doping" scandal, some broiler farmers in Shandong are going through a "harsh winter." The farmers said: "We won't consider raising chickens again before the New Year." Another price cycle may be coming.
"Those who lost less lost twenty or thirty thousand, those who lost more lost over 90,000." Yesterday, broiler farmers in Jiaxiang County, Shandong Province, told reporters. These farmers operate on a small scale, around 10,000 birds. But the recent sharp drop in broiler prices has made them lose confidence in raising chickens.
"We won't consider raising chickens again before the New Year. The prospects for meat chickens are unclear now." One farmer told reporters that although he could see a gap in broiler supply in the future, he was unwilling to take the risk again.
His operation is around 10,000 birds, sold in batches. But when one batch was just about to be sold, the "fast-growth chicken" and "doping" scandals hit. The contract he had originally signed with Liuhe Group could no longer be honored because Liuhe Group's slaughterhouse was shut down for rectification and stopped buying chickens, so he had to sell the chickens he had raised on the market.
"Some went for over three yuan per jin, some for over two yuan per jin. At that point you couldn't haggle with anyone." He told reporters that meat chickens have a fixed growth cycle, and when it is time to sell them, they must be sold.
He said that under the current market conditions (feed prices, chick prices, finished product prices) and weather conditions (need for warmth, etc.), a price of around 4.5 yuan per jin for meat chickens would basically cover costs, and the average price at which he sold was around 3 yuan per jin. He estimated the loss at around 100,000 yuan.
Gong Guifen, deputy secretary-general of the China Animal Agriculture Association, said in a recent media interview that the "fast-growth chicken" controversy is affecting the entire white-feathered broiler industry chain. Gong Guifen said that on the 18th and 19th after the CCTV expose, the price per jin of live white-feathered broilers in Shandong and several other provinces fell by more than 1 yuan; some slaughterhouses did not dare to buy the white-feathered broilers raised by farmers; and some farmers did not dare to buy white-feathered broiler chicks again. "One breeding chicken company in Shandong, unable to sell its chicks, simply burned 40,000 sets of breeding chickens."
An employee of Liuhe Group told reporters that in Jiaxiang County, seven or eight farming households that had signed contracts with Liuhe Group all suffered losses. There were two factors involved. First, Liuhe Group's slaughterhouse was shut down for rectification, making the previously signed chicken purchase contracts difficult to fulfill; second, relevant departments conducted inspections several times a day, so chickens could not be bought either.
The above-mentioned farmer told reporters that if chickens had been bought according to the contract, he could at least have broken even. But even though Liuhe breached the contract, he could now only sell the chickens first.
Yesterday, reporters called Liuhe Group, and a relevant person said that some regions had indeed stopped buying chickens. But she was not clear about which specific regions.
Gong Guifen said that after the "fast-growth chicken" scandal broke, the phenomenon of no one taking chicks existed in several provinces including Shandong and Liaoning.
The official website of the Shandong Provincial Animal Husbandry Bureau shows that after the "fast-growth chicken" scandal broke on the 18th of this month, the Shandong Provincial Animal Husbandry Bureau set up a handling leadership group and formed 4 inspection teams to go to relevant cities and counties for on-site supervision. Relevant cities and counties organized animal husbandry and veterinary, public security and other departments to go deep into the exposed enterprises to conduct investigation and verification in accordance with the law. At present, the relevant investigation and handling work is being carried out urgently.
At the same time, yesterday, Bi Meijia, chief economist and spokesperson of the Ministry of Agriculture, said when discussing the "fast-growth chicken" issue that the incident is under investigation and handling, and the relevant chicken farming enterprises and processing enterprises have now been shut down. Next, supervision of the entire breeding industry will be further strengthened, the level of the breeding industry will be further raised, and in particular, supervision and crackdown efforts will be increased against chicken farming enterprises and farming households that abuse antibiotics and veterinary drugs, with each case discovered being investigated and handled.