The year 2020 presented Hungarian poultry producers with major challenges. The avian influenza virus started to spread in February and eventually decimated our poultry population. This year’s outbreak unfortunately took a heavy toll, killing twice as many poultry as the outbreak in 2016–2017. So far the 2020 outbreak has resulted in the death of nearly 5 million poultry, 1.2 million of which were killed for preventive purposes. The authorities ruled that infected areas could be repopulated with poultry only at the producers’ own responsibility, which resulted in further loss of production in the poultry sector.
In March 2020, another challenge presented itself, when the closure of schools and restaurants was ordered in order to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic raging all over the world. The meat industry is still suffering the consequences of that more than two-month-long lockdown. The purchase prices plummeted for almost all farm animal species, including the broiler industry where a dramatic price reduction of 20–30 HUF/kg occurred. The slaughterhouses had to deliver the meat of slaughtered animals to deep-freezing storage facilities, and the demand for fresh meat products was very low. Our partners had to conduct their production activities in the face of the above-mentioned challenges, since the farms had to be operated further and because only very few producers could afford not to receive day-old chicks. Under such force majeure conditions it perhaps becomes even more important to ensure that the producers can continue their activity with good results.
The research and development team of Bonafarm-Bábolna Feed Ltd. is working on formulating diets with which our partners can consistently achieve good results. Our broiler diets are also being developed in this spirit.
Below we present some results achieved by our producers in the first half of 2020. The most important performance indicators show that our partners, irrespective of their farm size, achieved outstanding results – among them a broiler index (EBI, EPEF) consistently above 400 – in different parts of Hungary.
We congratulate our partners on the results achieved, than them for their trust, and wish them good luck and much success for the future!
Máté Kocsis
Chief Poultry Consultant
Bonafarm-Bábolna Feed Ltd.
