02/28/06 Bird flu and feed demand

Farm and Ranch February 28, 2006 The spread of avian flu into areas like Europe has renewed concerns about declining poultry demand and the impact that might have on U.S. feed grain exports. Eric Erickson with the U.S. Grains Council, says as the bird flu has moved into new areas poultry consumption has dropped dramatically. Erickson: "We have watched poultry consumption fall significantly in countries like Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, Iraq and other countries in the Middle East. Russia for instance. And we have calculated that if those levels of reduced consumption are sustained for more than six months we will see potentially 40 million bushels of corn exports lost just because of just the reduced demand in that area of the world." Erickson says the good news is so far the disease has not been a problem in confinement type poultry operations. He says that gives hope that U.S. poultry producers will be able to prevent the spread of the virulent disease in this country. Erickson: "So far we have not had that problem. Are the migrating birds going to come across through Alaska? We don't' know but certainly there are very heightened biosecurity processes in place across the United States. Poultry flocks are already isolated from other birds, isolated from each other. You know this is a whole science, biosecurity in poultry. And so we've got the best measures that can be put into place in our industry here. Hopefully that will work." Eric Erickson of the U.S. Grains Council. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.