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by Dr. A. S. Abeyratne - Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya.

The value of exported products from Sri Lanka has increased from Rs. 33 thousand million in 1986 to 303 thousand million in 1999. This is almost a tenfold increase over the period of 13 years. The annual contribution from the export of livestock products has been about 271 million (0.09 per cent of total exports) or 2,636 million (0.87 per cent of total exports), including values of exports of crustaceans. Such exports almost equal the value of export of rubber (Rs. 2,808 million in 1998) and desiccated coconut (Rs. 2,975 million in 1998).

The Sri Lankan veterinarians play an important role in the international trade of livestock products since they have to ensure that:

1. International regulations relating to food quality and food safety are followed,

2. No exotic animal diseases enter Sri Lanka, and

3. Appropriate tests are performed on livestock products and issue international certificates regarding food safety, quality and animal health situation, as required by the importing countries.

Table 1 and 2 show the position regarding such exports.

Trend in exports

An examination of the two tables reveals that the quantity and the value of exported livestock products are in the decline during the past few years. Thus it is seen that Sri Lanka has been loosing the export market for all livestock products during the period 1992 to 1998. Though the exports of aquaculture products have increased gradually till 1998, there is a drastic drop in the following year, 1998. The drop in the export trade of crustaceans is attributed to the increased disease incidence in prawns.

On the other hand, ornamental fish exports during the first quarter of 2001 have been valued at Rs. 193.7 million which is 15 per cent over the exports for the corresponding period of the previous year. Sri Lanka is yet to provide state assistance to the ornamental fish industry to control and monitor diseases. Incidentally, Sri Lanka's ornamental fish exports amount to about 2 per cent of the world market, while Singapore holds about 50 per cent of the international market.

International requirements for trade of livestock products

Trade policies for the marketing of animals, animal products and many other commodities are provided by the international trade agreement according to the rules of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) or regional trading blocks such as North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Economic Community (EC). The WTO is the legal and institutional foundation of the multinational trading system. It provides the principal contractual obligations determining the status of government frame and implementation of domestic trade legislation and regulations.

It is the platform on which trade relations among countries evolve through collective debate, negotiation and adjudication. The most important agreement in the animal health field is the Agreement of Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) measures based on fundamental principles of non-discrimination, equivalence and transparency. As regards the export and import of wild animal species, the Centre for International Trade and on Endangered Species (CITES) provides international guidelines as regards conservation of the respective species are concerned.

Animal health, food quality and food safety

Although countries maintain the right to take appropriate measures to protect animal health, it will no longer be justifiable to quote health requirements per se as reasons for non-tariff barriers. In this way trade agreements will depend largely on risk management based on risk assessments that are consistent, transparent and founded on valid scientific evidence.

The WTO designated Office International Des Epizooties (OIE), which is the international organisation under the UN umbrella (like the WHO for human health matters) in dealing with animal health technical issues. Thus OIE is the scientific body recognised internationally, to lay down guidelines for trade and trade disputes concerning animals and animal products.

The OIE provides guidelines for international trade of livestock products through its International Animal Health Code and Manual.

The FAO Codex Alimentarius provides international requirements for food safety. The requirements for food quality requires Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system (HACCP), ISO 9000 series, ISO 14000 series etc. compliance, in the livestock product manufacturing processes. In addition to these, there are rules and regulations of Regional Blocks such as the Economic Community (EC), North American Free Trade Agreement, By-lateral agreements between countries etc., that bind matters pertaining to import and export trade.

Sri Lanka's Challenges

Most countries now are getting increasingly conscious of food quality and food safety. The recent BSE and Foot and Mouth Disease incidence in cattle in England, dioxine poisoning in Europe and the outbreak of Avian Influenza in Hong Kong drew the attention of many countries of the world, specially importing countries, towards product quality and safety. Many importing countries require separate national regulations to be available for monitoring poultry production, processing and marketing, supervised by the Veterinary Health Authorities, as accepted by the OIE.

The absence of a separate law and regulations to control poultry production, processing marketing and disease, deprived Sri Lanka to win an all important export market for chicken to Singapore in 1997. It is essential for livestock processing centres to follow international quality control procedures such as HACCP, ISO 9000 series, ISO 14,000 etc.

Today only one Abattoir in Sri Lanka has an approved HACCP system and that too has been approved during 2001. None of the poultry abattoirs have government supervised meat inspection services headed by Government veterinarians. Lack of such standards will push Sri Lanka out of the export scene, as evident with the trend of declining exports of these commodities. Government owned abattoirs are the worst as regards the maintenance of such standards.

The present Indo-Sri Lanka by-lateral trade agreement provides duty free concessions in India for processed meat and milk products from Sri Lanka. To support this incentive there should be State assistance to the private sector to take advantage of this offer.

Exports to the Republic of Maldives

The Republic of Maldives has a considerable meat market. The country imports a range of meat products such as chicken, beef, pork, buffalo meat, mutton, turkey, ducks, chicken and many processed meat products. The consumer markets range from tourist hotels, expatriates and local inhabitants while about 60 percent of the meat imports have been chicken. In 1991, Sri Lanka supplied about 45 percent of the meat requirement of the Maldives. However in just two years, these exports dropped to 21 percent and today it is a low as 10 percent. In 1991 there were 20 companies exporting meat and meat products to Maldives.

But today there are only a very few. The lack of reefer facilities to the Maldives also contribute in a big way towards the decline. The Government of Sri Lanka has been very slow to respond and offer assistance to the exporters. In 1991, the Maldives did not have extremely strict standards for meat quality and safety. Today they are getting increasingly conscious of the need for such standards and the day Sri Lanka to be completely wiped out from the Maldivian meat market is no so far.

It is necessary to state that there is an urgent need to maintain high standards regarding food quality and safety, not only for the export trade, but also for the livestock products produced for the local consumers. This means that present laws and regulations may have to be revised and new laws and regulations enacted.

Importation of meat products

When developed countries demand quality products relating to their imports, developed countries find ways and means aided by local unscrupulous businessmen to 'dump' cheap quality products in developing countries. Cheap chicken products include meat from spent chicken or culled old hens, products stored for long periods of time and chicken parts, which have a low demand in the local market in such, developed countries.

In many developed countries there is no market at all for old hens, specially the while leghorn type. Many abattoirs will not even undertake the processing of such products. Therefore meat from spent hens are extremely cheap in developing countries. Chicken meat stored over 3 months in developed countries, are disposed at extremely low prices, even US $ 1 (Rs. 90) for 10 kg chicken. Such chicken can be imported and sold at even Rs. 50 a kg with substantial profits to the tradesmen. Also in the US, the most popular chicken products are the breasts, 72% of consumers preferring chicken breasts.

Legs are not popular in the US and are available at very low prices. Thus it is possible to obtain large stocks of chicken legs at extremely low prices and export to countries like Sri Lanka. This product, thus receives an unfair advantage over the local product, in the Sri Lanka market.

It has been noticed that some time back, such cheap products have been imported and supplied even to meet certain Government requirements, e.g. to meet the requirements of the armed forces.

The value of meat declared in the respective invoices, do not therefore reflect the 'real value' of chicken. Such cheap products are easily 'dumped' in developing countries, like Sri Lanka, giving rise to undue and unfair competition with the local products. Some of these invoices understate the values in the hope of paying a lesser custom duty.

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka is yet to introduce anti-dumping regulations to combat this practice. In the wake of this the Government of Sri Lanka acted promptly to prevent the dumping of cheap chicken products by valuing the imports at world market prices by the Dept. of Customs, which virtually stopped the flow of low quality and cheap chicken meat.

On the other hand developed countries and international organisations lay down certain conditions, which automatically restrict or keep out developing countries from the export market. A good example is when milk is defined as 'cow' milk. This excludes countries like India, which market buffalo milk, mixed with cow milk to compete in the international market.

The same is true where the concentration of certain impurities are concerned. The impurity levels are not based on any scientific evidence and to achieve the required standards highly sophisticated equipment are necessary, that developing countries can ill afford.

Therefore we see that all is not transparent, fair, non discriminative and based on solid scientific principles when livestock products are 'dumped' in developing countries. 

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