Floods damage fishery, threaten poultry production

Business Times 18 Jun 08;

(BEIJING) Rains and floods in China's southern provinces have damaged the region's fishery and may threaten its poultry production, Shanghai JC Intelligence Co said.

Rain swamped some fish farms in provinces including Guangdong and may cause the spread of diseases among poultry, Helen Huang and Daisy Rang, analysts at the Shanghai-based research firm, said in interviews yesterday.

About 15 southern provinces have been inundated by the fourth major rainstorm in three weeks, the National Meteorological Centre said yesterday. The adverse weather across roughly half of China's 31 provinces may stoke food prices, cut fish and poultry stocks and reduce demand for corn and soyabean meal, which are used in animal feed.

'The storms have significantly impacted fish farming, and effects on coastal Guangdong and Guangxi provinces have been disastrous,' Ms Huang said. 'The effects on fish supplies may not be felt initially, but will reverberate in the long run.' The analysts declined to provide estimates of the damages citing lack of data.

Water levels in southern China's rivers and lakes are rising rapidly, increasing the risks of major floods, the weather office said. 'If there isn't adequate prevention, this will increase the risk of poultry disease,' Ms Rang said. The storms have also disrupted shipping and supplies, she said.

By last Saturday, rains and floods have caused 10.6 billion yuan (S$2.1 billion) in damages and affected 860,500 hectares of crops, the China National Grain and Oils Information Centre said in a report yesterday\. \-- Bloomberg