Poultry Recovery Slows in France

FRANCE - French agricultural statistics agency Agreste has just published poultry production figures covering calendar year 2007: the national flock for poultrymeat marked a 9.8 per cent recovery from the avian flu crisis two years ago, although this rate of recovery is slower than 2006's 11 per cent.
calendar icon 10 March 2008
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Chick intake for meat production peaked during the months of March, June, September and December, totalling 777 million for the year.

Pullets for egg production have similar quarterly peaks of around 4 million birds/month, with 2007's total yearly intake reaching 46.8 million.

Figures for ducks are incomplete at present, but the January to November cumulative total of 50.8million table birds was 4.8 per cent up year-on-year, while force-feeding bird numbers were up 5.6 per cent year-on-year at 41.8 million over the same period. There was however a 4.6 per cent year-on-year slippage on the November force-feeding figure, possibly due to high cereal prices.

Turkey production saw stable intake figures for turkey poults: 96.9 million poults were brought in during the year, with the intake for the final quarter starting to fall back against 2006 levels. Again, following a surge in September's intake for the festive season, cereal prices and lead times were working against producers' chances of making good margins and intake fell back during the fourth quarter.

A year-on-year drop in egg production of around 4% is predicted for the first three months of 2008. Increasing numbers of pullets coming into lay ar expected to pull the gap back to just over one per cent by week 20.

Table chicken slaughtering totalled 700 million birds for 2007, out of a total of 739 million. The annual production came to 921,294 tonnes for table birds, out of a total of 978,574 tonnes. Turkey production for the year was just over 70 million birds, weighing in at 454,299 tonnes.

Agreste Conjoncture Aviculture, number 1, containing some figures to January 2008 is available in French from the Agreste website at http://www.agreste.agriculture.gouv.fr from the Conjoncture link.

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