Brazil hopes China, other countries may loosen trade bans over bird flu

BRASILIA – Brazil’s poultry industry is reeling from the

country’s first bird flu outbreak

on a commercial farm, but officials are hoping that China and other major consumers will soon loosen countrywide bans on importing Brazil’s chicken.

If the world’s largest chicken exporter can contain the outbreak in its southernmost state, then China could follow the example of Japan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to limit bans to only that state’s chicken, government officials said.

“Since global demand is very strong, it’s likely that there will soon be some flexibility,” said Mr Luis Rua, international secretary at Brazil’s Agriculture Ministry. “We are doing our part to quickly share information, so things aren’t suspended for long.”

Brazil's chicken exports account for more than 35 per cent of global trade, making a nationwide ban painful not just for Brazilian farmers but also major importers.

Brazil provides over half of China’s chicken imports, Brazilian Agriculture Minister Carlos Favaro said, with much of the rest coming from the US.

A devastating US bird flu outbreak and wider trade tensions with Washington have limited Chinese appetite for American poultry. China now blocks poultry from more than 40 US states over bird flu, according to US government data.

Brazilian farmers are also counting on warm relations between President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Chinese President Xi Jinping to ease the poultry trade ban.

Mr Renan Augusto Araujo, senior market analyst at S&P Global Commodity Insights, said the outbreak threatened to reduce Brazilian chicken exports by 10 per cent to 20 per cent, depending on how quickly the outbreak is contained and whether consumers loosen trade bans.

The Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, where the outbreak was flagged on May 16, is the country’s No. 3 chicken producer and had already suspended exports to China due to an isolated outbreak of Newcastle Disease in 2024.

“If there is no evidence (of bird flu) in any other region of the country, it could indeed trigger a wave of flexibility, and these countries could continue to buy from Brazil, except for the region of Rio Grande do Sul,” Mr Favaro said.

The European Union and South Korea are among other major importers that have banned Brazilian chicken.

Japan said on May 19 it has suspended imports of poultry meat from the southern Brazilian city of Montenegro and live poultry from the wider state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Spread could worsen outlook

If a wider bird flu outbreak spreads across Brazil, as it did in the US, officials and analysts say the outlook could get dimmer.

That scenario would raise US hopes for China to ease restrictions on American poultry.

Under a Phase 1 trade agreement China signed with US President Donald Trump during his first term in 2020, Beijing is supposed to lift statewide bans on US poultry 90 days after states eliminate bird flu from infected farms.

However, China has kept the bans in place longer than it had agreed in that deal, said Mr Greg Tyler, chief executive of the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council industry group.

“If Brazil is out of that market for 60 days, China is going to need the product,” Mr Tyler said. “Hopefully, that may push them, along with the fact that we’re having trade negotiations with the Chinese right now, to try to move them back to abiding by that regionalisation agreement.”

Mr Tyler noted that China’s automatic suspension of Brazil imports for 60 days is already more lenient than its agreement with the US.

“They’re getting a better deal than we are,” he said. REUTERS