Saudi Arabia has decided to temporarily suspend its imports of poultry, eggs and dairy products from 7 departments affected by bird flu.
The avian flu epidemic in southwestern France worries Saudi Arabia. The country announced on Monday the suspension of its imports of poultry, eggs and dairy products from 7 departments affected by avian influenza.
The Saudi Arabia Food and Medicines Authority has indicated that this interruption of imports targets the Dordogne – where the first case of avian influenza was detected -, the Landes, Haute-Vienne, Gers, Les Atlantic Pyrenees, Hautes-Pyrénées and Lot. This temporary embargo will be lifted once the health of the farms stabilizes, Saudi authorities have said.
Temporary stop of production
“Saudi Arabia is by far the leading importer of French poultry with 30% of purchases in 2014, the blow threatened to be hard,” notes our colleagues from Parisian. However, the unions in the poultry sector do not seem to be worried. Asked by the daily, Christian Marinov, the director of the French Confederation of Aviculture (branch of the majority agricultural union FNSEA) explained that “this will have no consequences because the export is done from Brittany and Vendée” therefore “as long as there are no cases in Vendée, we are at ease. “
Since the start of the epizootic, 8 countries in Africa and Asia – including Japan, 1er importer of foie gras – have closed their borders to French poultry. To date, 69 outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza for poultry have been detected in 8 departments in southwestern France.
To stem the spread of the H5N1, H5N2 and H5N9 viruses, the Ministry of Agriculture has decided to stop the production of ducks and geese in more than 4,000 farms located in 18 departments, or 75% of French production. A crawl space that could last more than 6 months.
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