SA urged to extend trade agreement for chicken imports with US to Brazil

JOHANNESBURG - The local food industry wants South Africa to extend the same trade agreement it has with the United States to Brazil in response to bird flu.

SA and the US have reached a trade agreement for chicken imports.

Currently, Brazil, the largest mechanically deboned meat supplier to South Africa, faces a ban on all chicken imports despite the bird flu outbreak being in a single state.

The agriculture department this week signed an agreement that empowers the US to manage its own internal export bans at the state level.

This means chicken can continue to be exported to South Africa from unaffected states, while those experiencing bird flu outbreaks are temporarily excluded.

The ban in Brazil has sparked fears of a hunger crisis, as the country supplies 95% of mechanically deboned meat locally to South Africa.

Merlog Foods, one of the country's largest importers of chicken and chilled products, said that for every week that there was a delay in resuming imports from Brazil, a loss of 100 million was lost in animal protein.

The agriculture department has formally requested Brazil to provide technical information about its avian outbreak in order to open access to critically needed mechanically deboned meat from most parts of the country that are unaffected by the disease.

Merlog Foods' Georg Southey: "I am pleased that the Department of Agriculture has formally asked Brazil to provide information about its bird flu outbreak in order to begin the process to lift the import ban on chicken for the whole country. I call on the department to act in speed when it receives the technical information and to resume safe imports into South Africa to avoid a major food security crisis."