Officials from the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Daff, recently met with a delegation from China and also visited various feedlots, abattoirs, ports of entry and so forth.

Daff chief director of inspection and quarantine services, Dipepeneneng Serage says the Chinese delegation wanted to verify food and meat safety processes.

“Basically their main worry is diseases, so they wanted to verify that we take care of animal diseases appropriately, in terms of OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health) standards.

“They also wanted to check management of livestock, feedlots and abattoirs. So we took them through different abattoirs, different feedlots, to enable them to familiarise themselves with South African beef production systems.”

He says the Chinese delegation also highlighted traceability as a key factor.

Serage says both parties now need to do some homework to finalise the technical aspects necessary to open the door for exports.

“In these things you have your normal legal agreements and then you have the technical agreements. Technical agreements would be about diseases, how you would manage disease A, how you would manage other things. This is the protocol, which then has to go through legal scrutiny.

“This has to happen for both of us, South Africa and China. As South Africa we have already started. We hope to have this sorted soon.”

He says an export agreement with China would have huge benefits for beef farmers, the agriculture sector and the GDP of the country as a whole.

- OFM News