Indian beef imports conditionally allowed

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Agriculture Soleh Solahuddin said on Friday the government would allow local traders to import Indian buffalo meat on the condition it conformed to set requirements.

Soleh said the decision was based on a recommendation from a fact-finding team recently dispatched to India to study the proposal to import Indian beef.

After visiting Hyderabad regency in Andhra Pradesh state and Aurangabad regency in Maharastra state, the team determined the buffalo meat in the two regencies was hygienic and met Islamic halal dietary laws, the minister said,

However, the team warned that several cases of foot-and-mouth diseases were found in Andhra Phrades.

The government will only import of the meat if it is hygienic and fit for human consumption, meets the halal requirement and is free from harmful and contagious diseases with potential to spread to domestic cattle, the minister said in a media briefing.

"So we require the Indian government to establish disease-free zones which are recognized by OIE," he said, referring to the Office of International des Epizooties, the international authority on epizootiology, the study of epidemics among animals.

Soleh said the Indian government declared Hyderabad and Aurangabad free of food-and-mouth diseases and rinderpest, two dangerous cattle diseases, but the claims were not endorsed by OIE.

The OIE ranks rinderpest -- a highly contagious bovine pleuropneumonia with a 90 percent mortality rate --as the most dangerous animal disease in the world.

Indonesia was able to eradicate the disease in 1990 after an outbreak decimated the country's cattle population in 1987.

The government's plan to import Indian meat set off a polemic in the country because many feared the move could bring the disease back into the country and affect local cattle populations.

Soleh said Aurangabad met the criteria to be declared a disease-free zone by OIE because it was located on a plateau, had a 100-kilometer disease-free zone and was surrounded by a buffer zone area.

He said Aurangabad boasted a decades-long track record of exporting buffalo meat to 68 countries, including Malaysia's Sarawak state and Brunei Darussalam.

"If the Indian government is not interested in gaining OIE's certification, then we will not import their meat," he said.

"But if they get the recognition, we will establish a mutual recognition arrangement, a bilateral agreement to regulate the import of Indian buffalo meat, including establishing a health protocol, which would require the Indian government to guarantee that its meat exports are free from highly contagious diseases."

Soleh added the government would assigns veterinarians to India to directly oversee the import process if the plan was realized. (gis)