KEY POINTS:
New Zealand sheep and beef farmers might be able to fill a gap in the European market after the United Kingdom banned all meat exports in response to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, local meat industry leaders say.
However, they are at odds as to just how much that potential gain might be offset if British product meant for export instead floods the domestic market.
Meat and Wool chairman Mike Petersen said it was too early to gauge the international ramifications after foot-and-mouth disease was detected on a farm in the south of England.
The highly contagious viral infection - which affects cloven hoofed animals - devastated Britain's agricultural sector in 2001, costing the country around £8 billion ($21.48 billion).
"Until we see the extent of the outbreak and whether they've confined it to this one farm, we just won't know what's likely to happen in the market," Petersen said.
With most of Britain's sheep meat and beef going to Europe, an export ban that was imposed immediately after the outbreak might offer New Zealand some benefit in that market, but more product would be available for consumption in the UK.
"With the UK farmers not being able to export that will put more product onto the UK market," he said.
However Federated Farmers meat and fibre producers council chairman Keith Kelly questioned whether the British public would accept meat that had been deemed unfit for export, especially in the wake of the BSE scare.
"How would the British public react? The UK domestic market could only accept so much," he said.
Tensions between the two countries' meat sectors were inflamed in June when British sheep farmers protested against a flood of New Zealand lamb into their supermarkets, but neither Petersen nor Kelly was keen to talk about profiting at the expense of the British farmers.
However they both agreed that any outbreak of foot-and-mouth in New Zealand would be proportionately more devastating to New Zealand, where agriculture contributes 18 per cent of GDP compared with 0.5 per cent in Britain.
Petersen said research showed that an outbreak in New Zealand would cost the country at least $10 billion over two years.
But he was confident the Government was doing all it could to keep New Zealand free of the disease.
But Kelly said a hoax outbreak on Waiheke Island in 2005 had shown some gaps in the Government's ability to respond effectively. However he hoped they could be plugged through better animal identification systems soon to be implemented.
Both expressed concern at suggestions the virus had escaped from one of the world's most secure animal health facilities in Pirbright, where New Zealand sent its samples for testing.
