Compound feed production shows increase in Japan

Japan's total compound feed production rose 1% in April from a year earlier, according to farm ministry data.

 

However, an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease will likely have an impact on the data from May, traders said.

Japan's feed production, of which corn accounts for about a half, totalled 2.176 million tonnes in April, up from 2.155 million tonnes a year earlier and rising on-year for the third month in a row. In March, feed output rose 5.4% to 2.172 million tonnes.

 

Foot-and-mouth disease has been found in animals at 290 farms and facilities in Miyazaki prefecture in southern Japan since late April, when the country's first case of infection of the highly contagious disease since 2000 was reported.

 

"Certainly the disease had an impact on production at one of the feed-making factories in May and has continued to do so until now," said a senior manager at a Japanese feed maker, adding that the impact on feed for pigs is bigger than that on feed for beef cattle.

 

Suspected cases totalled almost 200,000 cows, pigs and other livestock and additional 77,000 animals are to be killed after taking strategic vaccinations to pre-emptively avoid spreading the disease to areas beyond Miyazaki prefecture.

 

The disease does not affect humans.

 

Lower demand for animal feed from Miyazaki, on the southern island of Kyushu, a major livestock producing region, could be balanced by an increase in demand from more pig and other cattle output elsewhere in Japan. But if the situation worsens it could eventually affect Japan's corn imports from the US, traders said.

 

Domestic corn production is negligible in Japan, and more than 90% of corn for feed use is from the US. Japan, the world's biggest corn importer, bought 11.3 million tonnes of corn for feed use in 2009, down 3.3% from a year earlier. US origin accounted for 96%, with minor suppliers including Ukraine and Argentina. It was the fourth straight year of decline from a peak in 2005 of 12.2 million tonnes.