On September 6, Typhoon “Capricorn”, the 11th typhoon of this year, made landfall in Wenchang City, Hainan Province, causing estimated direct economic losses of hundreds of billions of Yuan in the city. Apart from impacting residents’ lives, the typhoon also caused unprecedented damage to a major local industry in Wenchang — Wenchang chicken farming.
According to reports from Daily Economic News and Southern Metropolis Daily, on September 8, the Shenzhen chain coconut chicken brand “Four Seasons Coconut Grove” announced on their WeChat public account that all 4 Wenchang chicken breeding bases in Wenchang City, Hainan Province were severely damaged due to Typhoon “Capricorn”. The supply of Wenchang chicken in all stores was greatly affected, and limited supplies are expected in the coming months.
On September 9, the coconut chicken brand “Tong Ren Four Seasons” also stated that their Wenchang chicken breeding base suffered severe damage, which could affect the supply of Wenchang chicken in the short term.
On September 10, the coconut chicken brand “Run Garden Four Seasons” announced on their WeChat public account that one of their bases suffered heavy damage, with container houses collapsing, power facilities destroyed, trees uprooted, and only metal frames left on the shed roofs. The coconut base also suffered significant damage, and the company will increase procurement of coconuts from Thailand.
Local Wenchang chicken breeders revealed that the chicken sheds were blown away by the typhoon, causing the chickens to die of fright. Some breeders also reported missing chickens, cows, and damaged rice crops.
Breeder Yun Yongzhou stated, “I have 4 children at home who need to eat, and my main source of income is breeding Wenchang chicken. I expanded the breeding scale this year, but unexpectedly the impact of Typhoon ‘Capricorn’ has rendered my efforts in vain. Most big chickens are gone, all the small chickens died, and the economic losses from the typhoon are at least over 600,000 Yuan.”
Reported by First Financial, breeder A Sheng said, “After the typhoon, the chicken farm was truly a ruin. Our tin sheds were blown away, and the temporary office building next to the breeding production line had its roof blown off. Many live chickens also died in the fierce winds, with initial estimates reaching three to four thousand.”
Although the breeding farms are working on post-typhoon self-rescue operations, they are facing challenges like damaged chicken coops, high temperatures, water shortages, scarcity of repair materials, and lack of manpower, which is hindering the speed of rescuing the chickens from dying.
The Wuchang chicken farm of Hainan (Tan Niu) Co., Ltd. suffered nearly 20,000 chickens, and the number is increasing.
According to a report by Nanhai Net on September 10, the mortality rate of Wenchang chickens in the entire city reached 60%, approximately 13.2 million chickens, causing economic losses of about 200 million Yuan.
Based on official data, as of September 8, Hainan Province’s total losses in agriculture, animal husbandry, and fishery amounted to around 11.948 billion Yuan (excluding the impact on fishing vessels due to the typhoon), of which the direct economic losses in the animal husbandry sector alone totaled 2.371 billion Yuan.
According to official Hainan authorities, incomplete statistics show that Typhoon “Capricorn” affected a total of 19 cities and counties in the province. In Haikou City alone, 1.2681 million people were affected, with 401 collapsed houses, 32,424 damaged houses, over 167,800 fallen trees, 56,742 hectares of affected crops, resulting in direct economic losses of about 26.324 billion Yuan. As the landing site of the typhoon in Hainan this time, Wenchang City is expected to suffer direct economic losses of up to 32.7 billion Yuan.