{"id":7708,"date":"2026-06-17T08:47:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T08:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/?p=7708"},"modified":"2026-06-17T08:47:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T08:47:43","slug":"the-struggle-to-get-sa-meat-exported","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/?p=7708","title":{"rendered":"The struggle to get SA meat exported"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/iframe.iono.fm\/e\/1686612?layout=modern\" width=\"100%\" height=\"170\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>I\u2019m chatting now with Paul Matthew. He is \u00a0CEO 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.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u2013 maybe \u2018deteriorate\u2019 is too strong a word \u2013 not be maximised as they could potentially be.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAUL MATTHEW: <\/strong>Morning, Simon and morning to the listeners. Yes. We sit in a situation. Obviously as a country we\u2019ve had issues with foot and mouth and so on, but we have markets that are open to us to say, \u2018We will accept your product as is, being vaccinated\u2019. A good example of this is the UAE.<\/p>\n<p>But our problem is that we cannot get our own government to get these markets opened for us to actually get the product through.<\/p>\n<p>So there seems to be a real problem internally with the Department of Agriculture to get these health certificates in place.<\/p>\n<p>Read: Meat industry warns certification delays threaten exports<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>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.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAUL MATTHEW: <\/strong>Yes, 100%. What initially happens is that these trade agreements have to be negotiated between governments and government. As the private sector we can\u2019t even get involved. Obviously we can facilitate discussion. We can push from our side, but they need to be put together.<\/p>\n<p>You have a really good example if you look at Qatar. It has been closed for two years now. They\u2019re ready to take our lambs. We\u2019re ready to export. But in the two-year period we have lost as an industry, as a country, about R1.5\u00a0billion since 2024, which is ridiculous.<\/p>\n<p>There just seems to be no urgency from government\u2019s side to get the process going.<\/p>\n<p>And then on the other hand, you\u2019ve the minister saying publicly, \u2018We\u2019ve got countries that are interested in our products,\u2019 \u00a0and putting that out into the media space, but he is not moving his own department and getting these markets open for us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>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.<\/p>\n<p>This an old story that I imagine has been ongoing for some time and is a huge stumbling block potentially.<\/p>\n<p>Read:<br \/>SA\u2019s animal health makeover signals major policy shift<br \/>Meat producers count the cost of inclement weather on the sector<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAUL MATTHEW: <\/strong>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.<\/p>\n<p>They sit now, refusing to move because they\u2019re saying they\u2019re not hearing from national. National is not communicating back down to provincial to say, \u2018These are issues. This is what we\u2019re working on\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s just no communication between national and the provinces. So everything just sits. Everyone just sits now and waits for national, and then nothing\u2019s happening at their end.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019t have markets to go and place them.<\/p>\n<p>Read:<br \/>Private sector warns SA\u2019s foot-and-mouth plan risks collapse<br \/>Gauteng ramps up vaccination as foot-and-mouth cases rise<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>\u00a0And the crisis aspect of it is that we could be doing this. We could be doing that R1.5\u00a0billion you mentioned to Qatar. We could have supplied it, and it would have created foreign revenue, would have created income for farmers, jobs \u2013 the whole gambit. We know what happens when we export. It\u2019s good for the economy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAUL MATTHEW: <\/strong>Absolutely. And it\u2019s good for the SA consumer because, remember, when you\u2019re exporting you\u2019re getting a far better price for that cut. It helps regulate the price for the consumer back home.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>So when you have a have a glut of all those products on the market, the farmers need to recoup costs \u2013 and who pays for them? You and I as the consumer.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Read:<br \/>Steady food inflation masks sharp meat price surge<br \/>Pork prices surge as outbreaks spread and state response criticised<br \/>South Africa meat-price growth at eight-year high on outbreak<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>I hadn\u2019t 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?<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAUL MATTHEW: <\/strong>It all depends on which country you export into \u2013 what their sanitary requirements are. So if they\u2019re happy with the with the programme of vaccination, there\u2019s good traceability, they would accept the product. And we can see that with the UAE; we see that now with Jordan. We\u2019ve just opened the Jordan market for beef.<\/p>\n<p>So these countries are saying, \u2018We accept your vaccination plan, therefore get the product to us.\u2019 Our government just sits and does nothing about it.<\/p>\n<p>Read: State mismanagement drives worst foot-and-mouth crisis in SA history<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>It\u2019s bad all around, make no mistake around that.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll leave it there. Paul Matthew, CEO of the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters of Southern Africa, appreciate the early morning.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>#struggle #meat #exported<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here. SIMON BROWN: I\u2019m chatting now with Paul Matthew. He is \u00a0CEO of the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters of&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9967,3349,6988],"class_list":["post-7708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","tag-exported","tag-meat","tag-struggle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}