Outbreak of AI May Seriously Affects Korean Chicken Industry

An outbreak of avian influenza (AI) in Gimje, North Jeolla Province has blocked Korean farms from exporting raw chicken.

The Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said on Friday, “Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, three major importers of Korean chicken and Korean style chicken soup, Samgyetang, informed us that they would continue to import Samgyetang but stop importing raw chicken.”

The Korean chicken export ban comes after eight months when Korea regained AI-free status last June. A country can regain AI-free status if the disease does not break out for more than three months after chicken cull.

Expecting huge potential damage to farmers, the Korean government has already decided to hand out half of the compensation for the culled chicken.

“I directed the payment for 50 percent of the average chicken price to farmers as soon as the affected regions end their cull,” said Kim Chang-seop, team director for animal disease prevention under the ministry. “Around 70 billion won is available for culling and I allocated 10 billion won to North Jeolla Province.”

Once the precise figure comes up as the region is disinfected, the ministry will pay the rest of the compensation accordingly. The ministry estimates some 4.8 billion won is required for the scheduled culling of chicken and disposing of eggs.

The ministry first announced that 308,000 chickens would be slaughtered, but revised the number to 270,000 given the geography and organization.

As for the transmission path, the ministry said, “We are investigating possibilities that transmission came from migratory birds or workers from Southeast Asia.”

“Eleven foreign workers from Mongolia, Vietnam and China were working on the farm where the latest outbreak of AI occurred. As foreign workers often meet other workers from their homeland, we are looking into whether any of them were infected with the virus through a serum test,” said Kim.

Chicken processing firms are nervous as well.

Kim Dae-shik, public relations chief of Harim, a chicken-processing company, said, “The farm where AI broke out is a farm for eggs, not chicken. But just in case, we stood up an emergency center and passed on safety guidelines for farms that provide us with chicken.”

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