Cape Ostrich farmers unfazed by detection of new bird flu strain

Industry believes new virus is confined to one farm, and does not expect a repetition of the 2011 mass culling, writes John Harvey

PARTICIPANTS in SA’s ostrich industry are confident the detection of a new bird flu strain on a farm near Oudtshoorn will not result in the economic devastation that followed the avian flu outbreak in 2011.

Earlier this week, Western Cape agriculture MEC Gerrit van Rensburg said a H7N1 virus was discovered at the farm and that the pathogenicity of this virus was as yet unknown. The department had started an “intensive epidemiological investigation” and had prohibited movement of ostriches and their products within 3km of the farm.

In 2011, the European Union (EU) placed an export ban, which remains in place, on South African ostrich meat following an outbreak of the A1 strain. This has accounted for more than half of ostrich farmers leaving the R2bn a year industry.

Before the ban, the Klein Karoo region was producing about 170,000 slaughter birds per annum, which represented about 70% of ostrich meat consumption worldwide, most of it for the EU.

But Oudtshoorn-based Klein Karoo International (KKI), the world’s largest supplier of ostrich products, downplays the possible negative effect the discovery of the new strain may have.

KKI MD Johan Stumpf says there is a high probability that the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ “quick, professional and scientifically exact action” had contained the virus to one farm.

“The industry is, therefore, not in the disarray that followed the 2011 avian flu outbreak.”

The 2011 outbreak resulted in the culling of 50,000 ostriches, causing slaughter numbers to drop some 35%. Last year saw a further decrease of 10%, and a 20%-30% contraction of the current 165,000 slaughter population is expected this year.

In an attempt to correct the ostrich population, KKI all but removed the market risk for slaughter ostrich production for the 2013-14 slaughter season. KKI developed a high quality heat-treated product which had been well received in Europe.

The EU ban excludes meat that has been “precooked” for just three seconds at 70°C. The KKI heat-treated product is exported mostly to Germany, Belgium and France.

Belgium is a major meat trading country and the product therefore is available in the Netherlands, Scandinavia, the UK and elsewhere in the EU.

“The heat-treated product represents the future of the ostrich meat industry as it secures long-term export markets,” Stumpf says.

KKI bought the processing equipment from the Klein Karoo Cuisine company in Johannesburg after the ban was imposed. The firm now produces heatprocessed ostrich steaks, goulash and strips.

Although farmers do not get as high a price for heat-processed meat as for raw ostrich meat, the processed product guarantees an all-year export market, unaffected by the avian flu ban.

This developing market allowed KKI to offer producers an advance supply contract from July 1 this year to June 30 2014 at a minimum guaranteed price. The minimum guaranteed price consists of an advanced leather and meat price table, linked to the exchange rate. Producers retain an exchange rate risk, but they have no market risk, and they automatically benefit from a weak rand.

Oudtshoorn farmer and member of the South African Ostrich Business Chamber, Johann Koegelenberg, believes the 2011 outbreak has provided the industry with lessons and does not expect any great fallout because of the new virus. “But you can never guarantee that because like human flu avian flu can occur at any time,” he says.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that poachers are plucking feathers from live birds. Although only “six or seven” cases have been reported this year to date, the new trend is cause for concern.