The British government is treating the routine lifting of a long-standing bird flu ban on its chicken imports into South Africa as if it were an historic new trade deal.
Since 2017, successive waves of bird flu outbreaks have resulted in South Africa imposing continuous import bans on UK chicken. Now, although bird flu remains prevalent in many European countries, the UK poultry industry has been incident-free for a while.
Once a country declares itself free of bird flu, and the South African authorities are satisfied that this is correct, the ban on chicken imports is lifted. This happened recently for Argentina, Spain, Denmark and Ireland, without ministerial fanfare and celebration.
Not so for Britain. UK food security minister Daniel Zeichner recently met South Africa’s deputy minister of agriculture, Rosemary Capa, and deputy trade minister Andrew Whitfield. WattPoultry reports that Zeichner said in a statement that the ministers had finalised a trade deal which would end South Africa’s eight-year-ban on UK poultry imports.
The UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) estimates that the lifting of this trade restriction could help its domestic poultry industry by as much as £160 million (US$209 million) over the next five years.
“This deal not only opens new opportunities for UK poultry traders, but grants a new avenue through which to grow the UK economy,” Zeichner said in a press release.
“We’re one step further on our journey to securing better trade deals for UK farmers, improving industry resilience and kickstarting our food exports.”
The move has also been hailed by Richard Griffiths, chief executive of the British Poultry Council (BPC).
The celebratory statements did not mention that UK imports of bone-in chicken portions such as leg quarters – historically a large component of export consignments – remain subject to anti-dumping duties. They were imposed because UK producers were found to be sending chicken to South Africa at unfairly low prices.
Britain has declared victory, but their triumph – and their ‘deal’ – might be short lived. Bird flu is still being reported in wild birds in the country and the northern winter is approaching. If there is another bird flu outbreak at a UK poultry plant, the ban will be reimposed.
