Smuggling of live chicken puts national consumers at risk due to cases of influenza in farms in Chiapas, Mexico

Chicken smuggling from Mexico into the country puts domestic consumers at high risk, due to the fact that since October cases of bird flu have been detected in Mexican farms, some of them in Chiapas, a border state, according to authorities.

In Mexico, formal businesses that sell chicken, eggs and turkey have urged their authorities to stop the spread of AH5N1 bird flu because this would generate shortages before Thanksgiving in the United States and the holidays, when consumption grows.

The same situation occurs in Guatemala, where since November 4 the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food (Maga) launched the alert and He ordered the installation of an epidemiological cordon to avoid contagion in birds from national farms.

So far, according to Maga, there is no case in the country, but controls are maintained to avoid them. In Mexico, according to the federal government, so far the virus has been found on five commercial farms, three of them in the state of Sonora, another in Nuevo León and one more in Jalisco.

But also in three backyard farms in Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala, Chihuahua and the state of Mexico. The total number of birds affected in the neighboring country is 852 thousand birds, which have been slaughtered.

The disease affects Europe, Asia, Africa and America. In Europe they have slaughtered 52 million birds. While in Canada and the United States, they have slaughtered more than 50 million birds.

Data from Maga reveal that poultry farming in Guatemala has a population of 83.2 million birds. 68 percent of these correspond to technical poultry farming and 32 percent to backyard. And therein lies the risk.

According to the World Organization for Animal Health (WHO) registered in the World Health Information System (WAHIS) Between January and September 2022, 2,679 outbreaks of influenza in poultry have been registered worldwide. most prevalent in Europe and the United States.

Caution

El Maga alerted at the beginning of November for a case that was detected in October in Mexico and another one in Colombia.
The director of the National Poultry Health Program (Prosa) of the Vice Ministry of Agricultural Health and Regulations (VISAR),

Julio Cordón, reported that this alert establishes to redouble the controls and inspections of people and transport in ports, airports and land borders in order to prevent birds and poultry products from entering countries with the presence of the disease.

“Guatemala has not had any cases of avian influenza to date. If we detect birds or poultry products without the corresponding permits, they will be confiscated and incinerated immediately,” Cordón said.

Smuggling

Given this scenario, what most Guatemalan authorities are concerned about the smuggling of live chicken from Mexico.

Alejo Campos, regional director of Crime Stoppers, community program that helps people, together with the National Civil Police (PNC), to provide anonymous information on criminal activities, assured that the time is propitious for the smuggling of live chicken from Mexico to Guatemala to increase.

But warned that the presence of bird flu in Chiapas increases the risks for the local consumer. “The problem that Guatemala has in the increase of live chickens that come from the Mexican border is that they put legal birds that are raised on farms, near the border areas with Mexico, at risk,” said Campos.

The regional director of Crime Stoppers added that chickens are illegally brought in alive and then mixed, to hide the illegal origin, at local backyard farms.

“The problem is the bird flu that has been in Mexico since October. A farm is contaminated and in the end those birds are slaughtered. Due to the end of the year holidays this increases and damaging the legal, local production, due to sick birds that enter illegally, would generate an economic impact and would undersupply the national market,” Campos asserted.

Another problem, Campos said, is that the chickens that come from Mexico are discarded, not suitable for Mexican consumption, and the farms of that country found an option to sell it in Guatemala.

Chicken smugglers, who make a profit of almost Q400 million a yearuse uncontrolled border points in San Marcos and Huehuetenango.

In the first apartment The main blind entry points are the villages of Gracias a Dios and La Mesilla, Nentón and La Democracia, respectively, where the presence of organized crime is high.

At those points, according to data from the Inter-institutional Council for the Prevention and Combat of Tax Fraud and Customs Smuggling (Coincon) enter between 150,000 and 170,000 animals every week. While in the Suchiate River, the main blind spot in Marquense lands, 120,000 to 150,000 birds enter.

The illegal sale of live chicken represents 10% of all food smuggling, whose percentage already exceeds the transfer of eggs and generates million-dollar fraudulent sales, according to data from the Commission for the Defense of Formal Commerce (Codecof), of the Guatemalan Chamber of Industry (CIG).