Brazil’s true broiler numbers for 2009

A report that was very recently published by Apinco, the Brazilian Chick Producer’s Association, noted that in 2009 Brazil housed 5.5 billion broiler chicks, 1.68% more than in 2008. This is significant for many reasons.
First and foremost, the big talk in 2009 was about drastically cutting broiler production in Brazil. After growing significantly in 2008, thus making it a record-breaking year, poultry producers agreed to make drastic cuts in late 2008 and early 2009. They cut the flock by 13% early in the 2009. However, by the end of the year, I was told by reliable sources that the cuts were really only 6%. And now this report says Brazil really didn’t cut overall, but rather grew.
Second, the fact that Apinco’s 2009 report didn’t come out until early April of 2010, makes it seem like these are statistics that they were not too anxious to publish. To be fair, we already knew that overall broiler production in 2009 was very similar to that of 2008. ...Read the full blog on www.animalagnet.com.