Meat exports sizzle as ban is lifted

Red meat exports have hit encouragingly high levels since the end of the threeyear ban imposed because of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), according to Mark Luff, commercial director of Excellent Meat Trading International and member of the executive committee of the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters of SA (Amiesa). “For the last 18 months we’ve been exporting 2 000 tonnes a month,” he told FTW. “That is well over R80 million a month in value. “And the encouraging part of this is that it was 800t/mth before the ban.” In export value that totals almost R1 billion rand a year, and in tonnage about 9 600t. The other encouraging factor, according to Luff, is that exports are booming right through the range of meat categories –from the low end to the high-value cuts. And that bodes well for the entire SA red meat export industry, which, according to the department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, exports about R3.8bn a year. Also FMD – although isolated cases are still being detected – is very much under control since the major 2011 outbreak which resulted in the three-year ban. The International Animal Health Organisation (OIE) declared SA to be free of foot-and-mouth disease, but is continuing to ensure that the required measures are fully implemented in the disease control areas – referred to in SA as FMD Protection Zones - of Mpumalanga, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal. And the Scientific Commission for Animal Diseases concluded that SA has made commendable progress to comply with the relevant requirements of the Terrestrial Animal Health Code for the maintenance of its FMDfree status. It added that the department and government departments in the three provinces with FMD protection zones had made progress on the implementation plan for “operation compliance”, drawn up in December 2014. Surveillance plans and movement control areas had been established. Meetings held in the affected provinces in January raised awareness of FMD and identified issues still to be addressed. The lifting of the ban is also benefiting other industries such as the pork, wool, dairy, hides, skins, leather and stud animal sectors, according to the Red Meat Producers’ Organisation. They had also suffered from the FMD stigma attached to SA agricultural exports in general during the ban. The SA Pork Producers’ Organisation, for example, said that, although pork was not entirely banned and some pig farmers were able to export their produce, the lifting of the ban also helped to grow the pork industry exports. While exports continued, producers could not export live animals. But, said the organisation, all this had changed.