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Is This Something? Bird Flu Strikes Again

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Bird flu is in the news again. Either it’s important or there isn’t much news to report and they are searching for stories. On Agricultural websites, there were reports of bird flu cases a while back.

Lean Hogs ($HE_F) at the $CME rallied nicely. A few years ago when there was a bird flu scare, the same thing happened only because it was concurrent with the superheated commodities rally of 2007, it was stronger.

Since that time, international governments have become more coordinated in their efforts to stop an epidemic from spreading.  No one wants a repeat of the Spanish flu of the early 1900′s.

If you were planning on travel to China, would you cancel your plans because of bird flu?

It seems like they have this one under control.   Already, health agencies are working on a vaccine.  China is culling thousands of birds suspected from infection.  But, there still are people being infected and the virus seems to be spreading a little.

On media, we see photos of Chinese people walking down the streets with surgical masks on their faces.  I am not sure if that’s for bird flu fear, or just the fact that Chinese air is so dirty.

When I was looking for articles on bird flu, I found this interesting information.  Chinese meat demand is up, and they have over populated their hog farms. The number of small hog farmers around Jiaxing climbed as pork prices rallied, resulting in far too many pigs for the land available. Data from a Nanhu district government document in September shows in 2011 the key hog farming town of Xinfeng had a level of 15.3 pigs per mu (667 sq metres), three times higher than the level of five hogs per mu local officials recommended in August 2012.  That’s 15 pigs in .16 acres.

The high density of pig farms, and the poor farm management that is often associated with small-scale farming operations, are key risk factors for porcine circovirus.  In response, the Chinese have set a goal to cut the number of hogs by two-thirds and to slash the amount of land available for farming by around 40 per cent.

Maybe the news will go from bird flu to swine flu again.

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The post Is This Something? Bird Flu Strikes Again appeared first on Points and Figures.


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