With chicken farms across the US hit by what US media outlets have called “the worst avian influenza on record,” the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine yesterday said that it has banned the import of chicken products from 15 US states identified as areas affected by the outbreak.
Bureau Director-General Chang Su-san (張淑賢) said that if an outbreak occurred in another US state, the bureau would add it to the list and block its raw and processed chicken imports.
The outbreaks in the US could spread nationwide, in which case the bureau would consider banning all chicken products from the US, she said.
A report published yesterday by Fox News called the outbreaks of H5N2 and H5N8 subtypes in the US “the worst outbreak of bird flu on record,” saying that as many as 33 million chickens have been — or are expected to be — destroyed.
Of the 15 US states on the prohibition list, Arkansas and Kansas have the highest output of chicken products, Animal Husbandry Department Deputy Director Wang Chung-shu (王忠恕) said.
However, the prohibition has not yet affected chicken prices in Taiwan, he said, adding that many chicken vendors have reserves that they obtained earlier this year to prevent possible shortages due to local avian flu outbreaks that led to a massive chicken cull.
Chicken vendors had imported more than 70,000 tonnes of chicken from the US before the outbreaks, which would be sufficient to meet the nation’s demand over the next three months, he said.
Even if a shortage in chicken products from the US were to affect Taiwan’s overall supply of chicken, broiler chickens raised domestically would soon be able to close the supply gap, as broilers take just five weeks to mature, he said.
However, even with the nation’s stable supply and demand, there is no guarantee that the cost of chicken will not rise, as prices are determined by market factors, Wang said.
The Council of Agriculture said that the nation consumes more than 900,000 tonnes of chicken annually, with 70 to 80 percent farmed domestically.
Chicken from the US constitutes about 100,000 tonnes of annual imports and represents more than 10 percent of the nation’s overall supply, it said.
Additional reporting by Sean Lin
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
RSS