Section 2: Feed and energy costs replace concerns over HPAI
- World slaughterings and production of chickenmeat, turkeymeat, duckmeat and goosemeat
- Chicken slaughterings and chickenmeat output
- World chickenmeat production ranking
- Broilermeat production- selected countries
- Turkeymeat production - selected countries
The full impact of the outbreaks of HPAI on poultrymeat production in 2006, compared with what might reasonably have been anticipated, has yet to be assessed, though one expert estimates a shortfall of at least a million tonnes.
Annual production growth could have been expected to average around 5% a year. However, between 2000 and 2005 the increase was less than 4%. The latest estimates for 2006 point to a rise of only 1-2%, putting total poultrymeat output in the region of 83 million tonnes.
For 2007, worries over the continued outbreaks of HPAI in several countries remain. However, a further concern has emerged over rapidly rising feed costs, mainly resulting from the growing use of cereals and oil crops for bio fuel production.
Yet another negative factor is the escalating cost of energy, which impacts all production sectors from the hatchery to the processing plant.
Reduction from earlier estimates
For chicken production the likelihood is that industry growth this year will not match earlier estimates of 3% and could be little more than 1%! However, that chickenmeat has a more favourable feed conversion than other meats will be in its favour.
Despite a slower growth rate in the foreseeable future, chickenmeat output in 2015 could come close to 89 million tonnes from around 60,000 million birds.
While chicken producers can confidently anticipate continued expansion, the prospects for the turkey sector are far less optimistic. After an average annual increase of almost 3% between 1995 and 2002, the growth in global production has since come to a halt and output this year is not expected to exceed 5.3mt which, while showing a slight improvement on 2006, would still fail to match the “peak” of 5.5mt realised in 2002.
Future gains in duckmeat production appear more promising. Over the decade to 2005 production has expanded by around 6% a year. While it would be unrealistic to expect this rate of growth to continue for the next decade, the average gain of around 3% a year recorded since 2000, could be achieved. This would put output in 2015 around 4.5mt.
3% annual growth since 2000
The picture for the goosemeat industry is similar to that for ducks, with production growth approaching 6% a year between 1995 and 2005. Though since 2000, a figure of a little above 3% has been recorded. Projected to 2015 this would put global goosemeat output above 3.0mt.
Thus, poultrymeat production worldwide in 2015 could well amount to 103mt.
As the worldwide data for 2006 was not available at the time of compiling this report, the ranking data applies to 2005 showing that the USA, China and Brazil are easily the three leading producers accounting for almost half of world output. However, USDA estimates (see broiler production table) point to further expansions this year in both China and Brazil, while in contrast, this will be the first year-on-year decrease in broiler production in the USA since 1973. Nevertheless, it is envisaged that even ten years from now, the USA will still be the number one producer with China and Brazil in second and third positions respectively.