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Traders consider avian flu’s impact on feed demand

Commodity traders are starting to look at the impact that continued avian flu outbreaks might have on corn and soy demand.

Those concerns were heightened this week when the virus was detected at a large commercial egg laying facility in Iowa, which will result in the culling of nearly four million hens.

Iowa secretary of agriculture Bill Northey says the shutdown of a facility that large will have quite an impact on local feed demand.

“Each layer will eat about a bushel of corn in a year,” Northey says, “and so you have an operation that will use a large amount of corn there, that once these birds are euthanized, won’t be using much corn for a while.”

Richard Feltes, a broker with commodity firm RJ O’Brien, tells agrimoney.com that the almost daily release of new bird flu cases is unnerving to both corn and soymeal demand—and potentially to U.S. consumer acceptance of poultry products.