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SIMON BROWN: I’m chatting now with Paul Matthew. He is CEO of the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters of Southern Africa. Paul, appreciate the early morning. Meat exporting is an important part of our agri economy.
We export a fair bit, but you make a point in a note you put out late last week that we are not maximising it, and we have relationships that are sort of in place and being allowed to – maybe ‘deteriorate’ is too strong a word – not be maximised as they could potentially be.
PAUL MATTHEW: Morning, Simon and morning to the listeners. Yes. We sit in a situation. Obviously as a country we’ve had issues with foot and mouth and so on, but we have markets that are open to us to say, ‘We will accept your product as is, being vaccinated’. A good example of this is the UAE.
But our problem is that we cannot get our own government to get these markets opened for us to actually get the product through.
So there seems to be a real problem internally with the Department of Agriculture to get these health certificates in place.
Read: Meat industry warns certification delays threaten exports
SIMON BROWN: And that was my next question. I imagine a farmer can do a lot, but ultimately it is the department, it is this government which is the important player, the significant player in this environment, particularly in the case of export.
PAUL MATTHEW: Yes, 100%. What initially happens is that these trade agreements have to be negotiated between governments and government. As the private sector we can’t even get involved. Obviously we can facilitate discussion. We can push from our side, but they need to be put together.
You have a really good example if you look at Qatar. It has been closed for two years now. They’re ready to take our lambs. We’re ready to export. But in the two-year period we have lost as an industry, as a country, about R1.5 billion since 2024, which is ridiculous.
There just seems to be no urgency from government’s side to get the process going.
And then on the other hand, you’ve the minister saying publicly, ‘We’ve got countries that are interested in our products,’ and putting that out into the media space, but he is not moving his own department and getting these markets open for us.
SIMON BROWN: I get your point. The interest is great, but we need that that process to actually happen. Some of it would seem to be inconsistency. In the article you write about inconsistent veterinary interpretation between provinces.
This an old story that I imagine has been ongoing for some time and is a huge stumbling block potentially.
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PAUL MATTHEW: Absolutely. So what happens in South Africa is that the actual provinces, through the state vet, are actually authorised to sign off health certificates for export.
They sit now, refusing to move because they’re saying they’re not hearing from national. National is not communicating back down to provincial to say, ‘These are issues. This is what we’re working on’.
There’s just no communication between national and the provinces. So everything just sits. Everyone just sits now and waits for national, and then nothing’s happening at their end.
So yes, we just lose days and days of really good trade. Obviously these animals are being produced, the farmers are farming them, and we don’t have markets to go and place them.
Read:
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SIMON BROWN: And the crisis aspect of it is that we could be doing this. We could be doing that R1.5 billion you mentioned to Qatar. We could have supplied it, and it would have created foreign revenue, would have created income for farmers, jobs – the whole gambit. We know what happens when we export. It’s good for the economy.
PAUL MATTHEW: Absolutely. And it’s good for the SA consumer because, remember, when you’re exporting you’re getting a far better price for that cut. It helps regulate the price for the consumer back home.
So when you have a have a glut of all those products on the market, the farmers need to recoup costs – and who pays for them? You and I as the consumer.
Read:
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SIMON BROWN: I hadn’t thought of that. A last question. You mentioned foot and mouth, and I would have thought that would essentially have closed off our export borders in the beef industry. But is that potentially not the case for all markets?
PAUL MATTHEW: It all depends on which country you export into – what their sanitary requirements are. So if they’re happy with the with the programme of vaccination, there’s good traceability, they would accept the product. And we can see that with the UAE; we see that now with Jordan. We’ve just opened the Jordan market for beef.
So these countries are saying, ‘We accept your vaccination plan, therefore get the product to us.’ Our government just sits and does nothing about it.
Read: State mismanagement drives worst foot-and-mouth crisis in SA history
SIMON BROWN: It’s bad all around, make no mistake around that.
We’ll leave it there. Paul Matthew, CEO of the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters of Southern Africa, appreciate the early morning.
#struggle #meat #exported