The Australian market is staying wide open for Canadian pork.
“We are projecting a record year to Australia,” said Canada Pork International executive director Jacques Pomerleau on Nov. 18, the day the island nation’s supreme court snuffed out a legal attempt to shut down pork imports.
“Hopefully all the legal proceedings are over.”
In early 2005 Australian Pork Ltd. managed to convince a lower court that pork imports should be banned because of fears of post-weaning multi-systemic wasting disease. The country’s food safety regulator, Biosafety Australia, had previously decided that imports were safe, but the court declared that the agency had made a poor decision.
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The Australian government appealed the court ruling, backing Biosafety Australia’s risk assessment decision. The initial court ruling did not shut down imports but would have done so had appeals not been successful.
Australian Pork Ltd., which represents Australian pig producers, lost its first appeal and has now lost its final appeal to the High Court of Australia.
In 2004, Australia was Canada’s third largest pork customer by value. Canadian exports to Australia, which had been flowing at a record pace before the court ruling, slumped for a few weeks while exporters and importers assessed the legal risks before putting any more pork on boats.
But soon Canadian pork was again being sent to Australia and by the end of September, it was beating its record year-before rate, with 27,000 tonnes exported for the first nine months of 2005 compared to 26,000 by that time in 2004.
Australia has been importing increasing quantities of pork in recent years. Canada and Denmark have been major suppliers, as has the United States since 2004.
The wasting disease that Australian Pork Ltd. said it was worried about is not found in Australia, but is endemic elsewhere.
Biosafety Australia had ruled there is little chance of the disease being transmitted via chilled meat.
