Xinhua insight: Chinese poultry industry struggles to survive H7N9

Lin Yuanzhong has killed more than 40,000 ducklings in the past 10 days as there is no sign anyone will patronize his duck breeding farm in Zini Town, Longhai City in east China’s Fujian Province. "If this continues for another 20 days, all the feed manufacturers, breeding farms and poultry raisers will be bankrupt," said Lin, who has been engaged in the industry for decades. Even though the fast spread of H7N9 avian influenza has so far only hit Shanghai, Beijing and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Henan, the ensuing fear has reached nationwide. The outbreak since earlier this month has given China’s poultry industry its hardest hit in a decade, with drastic declines in both poultry prices and consumption. Xiao Zhiyuan, director of the poultry association of south China’s Guangdong Province, labeled the current crisis "the worst in history."  Read More