SA poultry farmers inefficient US official

SA poultry farmers must improve their efficiency to compete, says Ted McKinney, undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs in the US agriculture department.

McKinney is in SA to lead an agricultural trade mission seeking to expand agricultural export opportunities in Southern Africa. He is accompanied by industry leaders from six US states and more than 30 agribusinesses.

Southern Africa is a net importer of farm products, most of which come from Europe, Asia and elsewhere in Africa. This presented an opportunity for the US to cultivate new customers for “high-quality, cost-competitive” US food and farm products, said McKinney.

SA’s trade relations with the US are complicated. An agreement with the US intended to preserve SA’s wider trade benefits under the US African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), permits the US a quota of 65,000 tons of meat to be imported tariff-free into SA. However, the SA Poultry Association (Sapa) is now litigating to force the SA government to reimpose tariffs following new US tariffs on SA steel and aluminium.

The new US tariffs are in breach of the agreement under Agoa, says Sapa.

McKinney told Business Day Sapa’s litigation is unnecessary and it is unfair to say the US is dumping poultry in the country. Instead, he said, SA’s poultry farmers should become more efficient, suggesting that they embrace technology.

Agri SA CEO Omri van Zyl disagrees with McKinney’s assessment of SA’s farmers, who he says are very good at what they do. “The US doesn’t understand the effect of the difference in scale between production in SA and the US. At the US’s volumes, it is easy to achieve economies of scale.”

Any inefficiency happens in the handling of products and in the bureaucracy for food safety and quality, he said.