China Ranks First in Poultry Egg Output in the World According to the introduction by Mr. Cao Xunmin, President of the China Food, Native Product and Animal Product Import and Export Association, China is a large poultry husbandry country in the world. In recent years, the output of poultry egg has been the first and the output of poultry meat has been the second in the world. In 2003, China had a poultry egg output of 15.35 million tons, a poultry meat output of 13.2 million tons, accounting for nearly 40% and 17% of the total world output. Poultry industry is a pillar industry in Chinese agriculture. According to statistics, China had an annual poultry slaughter number of 8.3 billion birds, a poultry population at hand of 4.7 billion bird by the end of 2003, and a total output value of 241.5 billion RMB for poultry industry. China had 13.7 million farmers directly engaged in poultry husbandry and the total net income gained from poultry production by farmers was 27.1 billion RMB. Poultry industry is the highest industry among Chinese animal husbandry in industrialization level and the extent of conforming to the international practice. Through many years of development, China has emerged a batch of leading and backbone enterprises with high production levels, leading in the industry, and guaranteed and safe product quality. China has exported poultry meat and its product and earned US$800 million in 2003, of which 70% of products came from these backbone enterprises. Meanwhile, these enterprises are also the major supplier of famous and quality poultry products on the domestic market. For example, in broiler industry, China has a total broiler output of 6.6 million tons; the backbone enterprises have an annual output of 3.4 million tons. The raw material chicken on the domestic super market, McDonald, and Kentucky Fry Chicken come from these backbone enterprises. Source: www.cav.net.cn