EU lifts ban on SA ostrich imports

Back on the EU menu ... bird flu cost the industry R600m. RAY SMUTS SUCCULENT ostrich meat could soon be gracing dinner tables abroad following the European Union lifting its ban on South African imports, this coming days after this country set aside its own, voluntarily-imposed ban. The EU ban, imposed in August 2004 when the H5N2 strain of avian influenza broke out in certain parts of the Eastern Cape and to a lesser extent the Western Cape, resulting in the culling of more than 20 000 ostriches, has cost the industry an estimated R600 million and 4 000 lost job opportunities. On the brighter side, it has to be acknowledged that domestic sales of the low-in-fat, rich-in-protein and low-in-cholesterol meat increased five-fold while exports were under embargo. Jan Greyling, media spokesman for the Klein Karoo Group at Oudtshoorn, says it is difficult to say when exports will resume to EU countries. "We have to recruit the market again and gain it back from the competition and opposition so the challenge does not necessarily emanate from other countries but other products in the country.Ó Greyling stresses the avian flu strain that killed millions of chickens and wild birds in South East Asia last year, now again detected in Romania, Greece and Turkey is known as H5N1, which is completely different from the H5N2 strain that infected South African ostriches.