January 11, 2016
South Africa blinks, accepts US livestock imports
South Africa has agreed to allow access to most US exports of poultry, pork and beef and their products, following a bitter warning of US trade reprisal.
The US government said an agreement between the two countries was reached on Thursday, Jan. 7, following a US warning in early November that it would suspend benefits to South African agricultural products under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) for failure to meet the eligibility requirements of the Act.
The US exported only a limited number of poultry and meat products for the last 15 years due to what it said were unwarranted sanitary requirements by the South African authorities. The US Department of Agriculture said that with this renewed access for US red meat and poultry products, US exports to South Africa could generate $75 million of shipments annually.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) hailed the South African move.
"With this agreement, South Africa reaffirms the scientific soundness and integrity of the US system for ensuring animal health and food safety, and this will result in high-quality US meat and poultry being available for South African consumers", Vilsack said.
Vilsack added that the agreement was the "culmination of many months of hard work by USDA and USTR (US Trade Representative) staff".
50M new consumers
NPPC President Dr. Ron Prestage said that with the falling of the South African barriers, "we have gained the opportunity to sell safe, high-quality and affordable US pork to over 50 million new consumers".
He said that for many years the US had been "on the outside looking in as our competitors from Brazil, Canada and the European Union sell pork to South Africa, which "banned our pork using non-science-based restrictions that don''t pass the red face test".
South Africa continued to ban poultry imports from the US following the outbreak of avian influenza while a de facto ban on US pork was ostensibly to prevent the spread of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) to South African livestock.-Rick Alberto