The eyes of the agricultural world will be on a high-powered Namibian delegation from all sectors of the local livestock and meat industry when it addresses the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva.

At the meeting to be held from March 16 to 17 the delegation is set to present its case before the Sanitary and Phyto Sanitary (SPS) Committee of the WTO in a bid to mitigate the new stringent and soon-to-be-announced livestock import restrictions by South Africa.

The delegation will include representatives from the Directorate of Veterinary Services, the Agricultural Trade Forum and agricultural unions, as well as the Ministry of Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development.

General manager of the Meat Board Paul Strydom confirmed that the Meat Board, in cooperation with the Directorate Veterinary Services, the Agriculture Trade Forum, agricultural unions and the Directorate of Planning, is currently finalising preparations to state Namibia’s case in light of South Africa’s expected new requirements that would make Namibian livestock exports to that country virtually impossible.

“Namibia’s position is that the issue has to be solved bilaterally to the benefit of both countries by way of negotiations, and that should the import conditions be implemented, it has to be done on a differentiated basis over a period of time. It is hoped that South Africa will agree to such a process, seeing that the impact on the Namibian livestock exports and the meat industry could be catastrophic,” the Meat Board said yesterday.

Stakeholders in Namibia’s N$2.5 billion per annum livestock export industry are on the edges of their seats after the last round of negotiations in January regarding the South African authorities’ intent to introduce new animal health requirements for Namibia which, if implemented, could bring the local livestock industry to its knees.

As coordinator of the negotiations, the Meat Board met the deadline of January 8 to answer South Africa on the various issues on which the neighbouring country is basing its proposed new livestock imports from Namibia.

“We’ve not received any feedback to date, but expect an announcement by the SA authorities any day now,” Strydom said.

It is expected South Africa will adopt the new restrictions within the next few days, following which the regulations will be implemented six months later.

Namibia is now preparing to address the SPS Committee to acquire some breathing space before the implementation and to activate its own Master Plan after the Livestock Producers Association (LPO) of Namibia and the Namibian Agricultural Union last week officially requested President Hage Geingob to intervene to help save the industry.

Namibia currently exports some 180 000 weaners, 90 000 sheep and 250 000 goats per year to South Africa and the N$2 billion plus industry is the livelihood of many, especially small-scale and communal farmers.

The Namibian delegation – which is yet to be named – will put forward the strongest case possible to avoid such a catastrophe, as some 75 percent of communal farmers depend on livestock exports to SA for their livelihood.

LPO chairperson Mecki Schneider has described the requirements as “trade restrictions requested by the SA Red Meat Producers Organisation (RPO), because they have no system in place to control the flow of animals to and from South Africa”.

It turns out the revised regulations have not changed from the previous publication, on which the Namibian industry has already commented extensively. These stringent regulations were imposed overnight in May 2013 and devastated the local livestock export industry, resulting in losses amounting to billions of dollars.

The Meat Board has since 2013 been putting short-, medium- and long-term strategies in place in case of a scenario, such as the one unfolding now.

These measures include the transformation of the Namibian weaner industry to an oxen production system.