World Crazy for Chicken Is Losing Its Biggest Supplier
A commercial poultry farm, site of Brazil's first bird flu outbreak, in Montenegro, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, on May 17.
Photographer: Silvio Avila/AFP/Getty ImagesThe detection of bird flu in a single poultry farm in southern Brazil is reverberating around the world, cutting supplies to voracious consumers from China to Europe.
Shipments to top destinations, which also include Mexico and South Korea, have been suspended as the world’s largest chicken exporter seeks to stop the deadly H5N1 strain from spreading. The bans have so far shut down markets accounting for more than $4 billion a year in export revenues, or 40% of the total, according to government data.