Ukraine is considered the biggest poultry producer and supplier for the Middle East, the EU, Central Asia, and North Africa, which has been highly impacted by the growing feed costs and quick spread of avian influenza outbreaks in different country states. This disease has led to cull millions of birds. Impacting the industry negatively due to the ban on exports of poultry products, ban that started from the first avian flu outbreak reported in December in Mykolaiv region.
Fortunately, on Wednesday, a new agreement with the EU has allowed to resume the poultry exports from Ukraine to the EU from March 20th of 2021. That statement was announced by The State Food Safety and Consumer Protection Service, indicating that Ukraine can divide the country into zones with and without avian flu outbreaks. Then, the products from uninfected zones will be exported.
The new export statement will take effect on March 20th
“This will give Ukraine the opportunity to resume trade with the EU in poultry products, even taking into account the fact that quarantine restrictions are still in force in zones where cases of the disease have been revealed, as well as to supply safe products from non-infected areas,” said Vladyslava Magaletska, Head of the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection (SSUFSCP)
The overall export of poultry meat from Ukraine rose 4% in 2020 with 431,000 tonnes
According to the last Poultry and Products Semi-Annual report from the USDA “The new EU import TRQ structure, that ruled out over-quota imports of chicken meat cuts classified under HS 020713, was applied throughout all of 2020. Combined with continued HPAI outbreaks, these new import rules led to a 32 percent drop in Ukraine’s exports to the EU market. This situation is not likely to change in 2021 due to continued outbreaks. Some TRQ volumes are likely to remain unclaimed”
However, with this new statement, a rapid recovery of the market and exports of Ukraine is expected in the EU and other countries.