January 30, 2012

Romania's pig meat dispatching resumes to other EU member states

As regards the dispatch to other member states of certain meat and meat products, Romania may resume its intra-community trade in fresh pig meat and meat preparations as of Thursday (Jan 26).

Following the publication on Wednesday (Jan 25) evening in the Official Journal of the EU of Commission Implementing Decision of January 24, 2012 amending Decision 2008/855/EC as regards the dispatch of certain meat and meat products from holdings situated in the areas listed in Part III of the Annex thereto.

'So far, 50 holdings and one abattoir have applied for participating in the intra-community trade and dispatch to third countries,' Chairman of the National Animal Health and Food Security Authority (ANSVA) Radu Roatis said Thursday.

Most of the holdings having requested approval to dispatch fresh pig meat are located in the western counties of Timis, Caras-Severin, Arad and Bihor.

The resumption of the dispatch of fresh pig meat to the EU internal market is said to benefit commercial holdings as well as the pig farmers of Romania, as the value of exports is estimated by industry operators at more than EUR300 million (US$395.6 million) a year. For the holdings having applied to dispatch to the internal market, the 2012 exports are estimated to exceed 20,000 tonnes in carcass.

The dispatch to other EU member states of fresh pig meat and meat preparations and meat products consisting of or containing fresh meat from pigs kept in Romania were banned back in 2003 as Romania was vaccinating pigs against classic swine fever. In 2003, Romania exported 4,798,669 tonnes of pig meat worth EUR619.12 million (US$816.4 million).

According to the EU legislation, the dispatch of these commodities is permitted provided that the safety of those commodities is ensured by means of a channelled system. Such system would consist of holdings or one or more epidemiological units operating a common bio-security management system and an established supply chain, to ensure a distinct health status for classical swine fever for the subpopulation of pigs kept therein.

Data with the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADR) indicate that that 2010 pig meat output of the country stood at nearly 553,000 tonnes live and nearly 365,000 tonnes in the first 10 months of 2011. Romania imported almost 200,000 tonnes of pig meat in 2010 and 106,000 tonnes in the first eight months of 2011.

The last outbreaks of classical swine fever in Romania were reported in 2007 at the Smithfield holdings in Timis County, where more than 50,000 pigs had to be culled.

Romania's pig stock is put at 4.6 million, 1.4 million of which are bred at commercial holdings.