Production of foie gras falls in France
Drop follows record dearth of butter and wine
PARIS — France is heading for a dearth of foie gras for the festive season, producers have warned, with prices expected to soar following a two-year battle against bird flu.
The warning came as the French head for Christmas with a chronic butter shortage and the lowest grape harvest for wine in the country since 1945.
Producers of foie gras, the famed and controversial duck or goose liver pate eaten by millions of French around New Year, are still recovering from a string of cases of bird flu in southwestern France that forced them to slaughter thousands of birds.
Already last year there was a 25-per-cent drop in production of the delicacy. This year, Marie-Pierre Pé, head of the foie gras producers umbrella group, Cifog, said production was yet again down a further 22 per cent compared with 2016.
“Stocks of foie gras have dwindled after some producers in areas like western Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie had to stop activities for six to 10 months (as a precautionary measure after culling birds affected by the H5N1 virus),” she told Le Parisien.
This year, foie production has hit a ceiling of 11,000 tons, which represents “23 million ducks, compared to 29 million in 2016 — a year already hit by a first crisis of (bird flu),” she said. On top of that, foreign buyers like Japan are back after recently lifting a ban on imports of the delicacy due to bird flu fears. Prices are expected to rise by up to 20 per cent. “Of course prices are rocketing; there isn’t enough to go around,” said Marie-Pierre Robert, head of a family farm of 6,000 ducks in Catus in the southwestern Lot.
Foie gras is made out of the fattened livers of geese and ducks that have been force-fed grain.
Jacques Trottier, head of foie gras group Labeyrie in the western Landes, said that “more than 90 per cent of French intend to eat foie gras and smoked salmon during the festive season.”
But after a fall in production of 35 per cent in his area, he warned: “The risk of shortages exists for those who wait until the last minute. Our volumes are smaller and there is a risk that there won’t be enough to go around.”
There is one saving grace, however; after years of shortages, it has been a bumper year for truffles.