Russia has eased its import restrictions on kangaroo meat, a move welcomed by the Australian kangaroo meat industry.
Australia’s largest kangaroo meat supplier Macro Meats has secured permission from the Russian quarantine authority to begin exportation of their product after their site and operations were inspected over a three week period, the ABC reported.
Restrictions were put in place four years prior following Russian claims that the trade presented food safety concerns, citing high levels of E. coli and salmonella.
Government and industry groups have extensively lobbied the restrictions for the past four years after the suspensions brought the industry to its knees, wiping out more than half of the $120 million export sector.
Russia once accounted for 70 percent of exports for the commercial kangaroo industry and insiders said the decision to lift the ban is estimated to bring a $200 million boost to the kangaroo meat industry, marking the move a significant turning point.
"I think what they want to do is just start it and see how it goes and then gradually let more in depending on how we perform," Macro Meats manager Ray Borda said.
"There's a lot of weight on our shoulders to do the right thing."
However, this result to remove the ban isn’t just assisting the meat production industry.
Land owners and farmers are now also looking at the industry win as a way to control kangaroo population numbers.
New South Wales Bombala Shire mayor Bob Stewart is currently lobbying the state government to allow kangaroo culling after favourable seasonal conditions has seen populations swell, the ABC reported.
“With the better seasons here in the last two or three years, the kangaroo population has grown dramatically,” Stewart said.
Stewart stated that an increase in demand for kangaroo meat may now attract professional hunters.
“If we can get commercial value out of many in the kangaroo population it is only going to benefit all the landholders with the problem we have,” he said.
“I'm sure once there is a market and demand, then we will have people come in and take advantage of the situation which I think will be advantage to everybody,” he said.
Earlier this year Food Magazine reported that Australia’s commercial kangaroo industry is the world’s largest consumptive mammalian wildlife industry. Calculated on a ten-year period, an average of three million adult kangaroos are killed each year in the rangelands for pet meat, meat for human consumption and hides.
At the time a representative from the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia said “I think we are starting to have to seriously consider the end of the kangaroo industry nationally.”