Hong Kong poultry wholesalers threaten boycott after bird flu cull
Wholesalers may stop sales in protest at temporary delivery arrangements they claim 'will not work' after second virus scare of year
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 31 December, 2014, 2:46am
UPDATED : Thursday, 01 January, 2015, 8:10am
Emily Tsang and Elizabeth Cheung
Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department staff dispose of culled chickens at Cheung Sha Wan market. Photo: Felix Wong
Fresh chicken could be off the menu for at least 21 days after the city's latest bird flu scare sparked a row between wholesalers and the government over delivery arrangements for live poultry.
The dispute broke out yesterday, as health officials carried out the grim task of culling all 19,000 birds at Cheung Sha Wan wholesale market, the second mass cull of the year. The cull, along with a three-week ban on imports, was announced in a dramatic 1.30am press conference by health minister Dr Ko Wing-man after samples from a farm in Huizhou , Guangdong, tested positive for the deadly H7N9 strain of the virus.
All trade in live chickens will be halted for several days as health officials inspect local farms, although no cases of bird flu have been found in locally bred chickens so far.
But the nine local poultry wholesalers are threatening to cease trading until imports resume unless the government rethinks an arrangement under which all local chickens are gathered for inspection at Ta Kwu Ling while the Cheung Sha Wan market is disinfected.
They say the arrangement, set up after a previous cull in January, is "too time-consuming" and "will not work". But Dr Leung Siu-fai, deputy director of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, said the question of whether to supply chickens via the new checkpoint was "a matter of their commercial decision".
The problem lies with the fact that all chickens taken to the new checkpoint in the northern New Territories will stay on the same truck for distribution to wet markets across the city. At Cheung Sha Wan, they are offloaded and placed on separate trucks for Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories.
"This will not work. The wet markets will be closed by the time the truck reaches its last destination," said Lin Tak-hing, chairman of a live poultry wholesalers association.
The cull of 15,000 chickens started at 10.30am. Photo: Felix Wong
But Ko said the size of the site made it impossible to unload chickens there.
"It is also important that the birds are being moved directly from the farm to the retailers without mixing with other chickens, so the government can trace the supply chain," Ko added.
Meanwhile, shoppers looking to serve fresh chicken for the holiday were left frustrated yesterday and retailers feared for their livelihoods.
"I am a bit disappointed as the soup might not taste as good," said a shopper at a Wan Chai market who could only find frozen chicken. A vendor at the same market said the 15 live chickens she had left were snapped up quickly, after which her business fell by 80 per cent.
In January, 20,000 birds were culled and all live chicken sales banned for three weeks after a sample from a Guangdong supplier tested positive for bird flu. Chicken imports from the mainland resumed only in September after months of wrangling and legal challenges on the question of how to keep locally bred and imported chickens apart.
The government paid out more than HK$10 million in compensation to affected breeders and wholesalers, and Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said the affair raised questions over whether live poultry sales could continue in the city.
The mainland usually supplies 7,000 birds per day, with another 12,000 bred locally.
Meanwhile a 68-year-old woman, the first confirmed bird flu patient in the city this winter, remained in a critical condition at Tuen Mun Hospital yesterday.
