Deal to put Ga. chicken back on Russian tables

By Bob Keefe

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

WASHINGTON -- A trade agreement reached by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev over U.S. poultry exports will provide a much-needed boost for the agriculture industry in Georgia, industry officials say.

Georgia is the nation's biggest producer of chickens, and Russia was one of the world's biggest buyers of U.S. poultry before it placed a ban on most U.S. chickens in January because of food safety concerns.

Under the agreement inked by Obama and Medvedev late last week, Russia will begin importing U.S. chickens again almost immediately.

For Georgia's poultry industry, which suffered through some of its worst years ever in 2008-2009 because of high feed prices, low market prices and the recession, the lifting of the ban was some much-needed good news.

"To lose a major trading partner like that ... was quite a blow," said Mike Giles, president of the Georgia Poultry Federation. "To have that reversed is great news."

U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics show that Russia bought more than $750 million worth of U.S. chicken in 2009.

But that dropped to zero after Russia banned U.S. chickens over domestic producers' heavy use of chlorine to clean birds. Under the new agreement, U.S. producers will replace chlorine with other chemicals.

While the deal with Russia was welcome news for chicken producers, it's not necessarily good news for U.S. consumers. Industry officials had predicted that U.S poultry prices could drop if Russia's market wasn't reopened.

After reaching the agreement with Medvedev last week, Obama remarked that "chicken is important"-- but he also joked about the oddity of two world leaders taking poultry.

"Sometimes it’s odd when you’re sitting in historic meetings with your Russian counterpart to spend time talking about chicken," Obama said after the meeting.