Crocodile farmers want a bite at Europe

South Africa’s small crocodile farming industry has high hopes of breaking into the lucrative European market by revising its husbandry practices and infrastructure to produce faster-growing, bigger animals that have better quality skins.

It believes this can be achieved by introducing an accreditation system for producers. The industry, which five years ago had no specialised crocodile tanneries, also hopes to increase local production of crocodile leather products within the next five years.

SA has 40 registered crocodile farms, but only about 10 are commercially productive and provide about 15% of classic crocodile skins for the world market, exporting about 55000 skins a year.