Alarms raised over EU exports of reject meat

By Saffina Rana

Date: 01/07/04

THE European Commission is investigating allegations from a group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) about the mass export of reject EU frozen meat to Central and West Africa. The Commission has conceded that there is a problem with member states exporting large quantities of frozen poultry products unsuitable for human consumption in Europe to countries in Africa. The Commission's trade department is keen to get the issue considered during discussions with Central African states which are to begin in September and are supposed to lead to trade and development agreements.

An official at the Commission's trade directorate-general said: "There's a real problem with frozen poultry. There are problems with health, customs, contraband imports, consumption, economic trade, product tariffs."

Aprodev, the Association of Protestant Development Agencies in Europe, a grouping of 17 charities and NGOs, presented evidence to the Commission last week focusing on Cameroon. The Commission was represented at the meeting by the departments of trade, development, health and consumer protection, and agriculture. The NGOs reported that waste poultry products such as gizzards and old poultry were resold for human consumption at exceptionally low prices in Cameroon, bankrupting local chicken farmers. They found similar problems in Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal and Ghana. The report cites Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands and France as the largest EU exporters of frozen poultry, totalling over seven million kilograms in 2003.

Aprodev member organizations claim double standards exist for the quality of meat sold on domestic and international markets. Karin Ulmer, a policy and gender officer at Aprodev, told European Voice: "These products are reject products…that cannot be sold on European markets because consumers just won't buy them."

The NGOs are concerned that by the time the frozen products reach African markets, they have passed their expiry dates because of the length of their journey and the wait for customs clearance at African ports.

Samples of frozen chicken imports were tested for the NGOs by the Pasteur Centre in Yaoundé, which found that 83% were unfit for human consumption and contained levels of bacteria and parasites higher than EU safety levels. Aprodev members who have been supporting poultry smallholders in Cameroon for more than a decade say that all the farmers that they had helped start production have gone bankrupt following the decline of poultry meat prices on the local markets. They blame a glut of frozen poultry imports from Europe.

According to Bernard Njonga, secretary-general of Association Citoyenne de Défense des Intérêts Collectifs in Cameroon, and one of the team conducting the NGO investigation, 22,000 tonnes of frozen poultry were exported to Cameroon in 2003. Njonga estimates that if the same quantity had been produced nationally, this would have created around 110,000 jobs.

The Commission's directorate-general for development wants Aprodev to continue its research. An official said: "We don't know the facts behind the decreasing numbers of small Cameroonian poultry producers and what kind of distortions exist, whether they are due to internal market reasons, EU exports or other country exports."

Saffina Rana is a Brussels-based freelance journalist.

The European Commission has admitted there is a problem with some Member States exporting large quantities of frozen poultry, deemed unfit for human consumption, to countries in Africa.

http://www.aprodev.net/main/index.htm http://www.aprodev.net/main/index.htm

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