S Korea feed wheat, corn imports to fall on animal cull

SEOUL: Animal slaughters to contain South Korea's worst foot-and-mouth outbreak will reduce grain imports for feed -- mainly corn and wheat -- by at least 1.3 million tonnes, a senior Korea Feed Association (KFA) official said on Wednesday.

Kim Chi-young, director at the KFA's purchasing division, said compound feed demand was seen dropping by at least 14 percent from last year's 17.5 million tonnes due to the recent livestock cull, resulting in a sharp drop in feed grain imports.

"While our members need to buy grain for June and July arrivals, we are taking a wait-and-see stance due to lower feed demand on top of bullish prices," Kim told Reuters by telephone.

Nationwide cases of foot-and-mouth disease have forced Asia's fourth-largest economy to cull nearly a third of its hog population and about five percent of cattle to stop the spread of the disease among livestock, with confirmed cases continuing to rise to 149 cases in 10 provinces within three months.

Deadly H5N1 virus of avian influenza also hit the Northeast Asian country since late December, with 44 cases confirmed in five provinces and about four percent of the country's poultry population culled so far. No human case has yet been detected.

"Foot-and-mouth and avian flu are still going on, which makes us hard to pin down how they would affect (feed demand) eventually," Kim said.

South Korea's largest feedmaker Nonghyup Feed said earlier this month that the country's feed output was projected to drop by a maximum 30 percent this year as more livestock would be slaughtered for meat if bans on their transfer were lifted, on top of the massive cull against foot-and-mouth.

Industry officials noted South Korea's feed output was almost equivalent to its feed demand.