The U.S. Department of Agriculture says South Korea has lifted a ban on U.S. poultry and egg imports. That will allow American farmers to resume selling their products to a country that suffered from a shortage of eggs after its worst-ever avian flu outbreak. South Korea was actually importing more eggs from the U.S. earlier this year as it battled its avian flu outbreak. South Korea placed limits on U.S. egg imports in March after the first U.S. case of bird flu was found in Tennessee. Jim Sumner, President of the U.S. Poultry and Egg Export Council, says, prior to the South Korean move, “Americans were putting table eggs in there like they were going out of style. They are still in desperate need.” South Korea has the fourth-largest economy in Asia. It was hit hard by a deadly outbreak of H5N8 bird flu after the first case was confirmed last November.
The outbreak led to a culling of 37 million farm birds, a record number totaling more than one-fifth of the total poultry population. USDA is working to convince Korea to limit future shipment restrictions to only the geographic regions in which the disease is detected.
Source: NAFB News Service