Chicken dumping led to 4 000 job cuts
Up to 1.3 million dependants may be without support
SOUTH Africa’s national economy is set to suffer more if chicken imports that have already caused more than 4 000 job losses are not stopped.
This is according to FairPlay, an independent non-profit organisation which yesterday outlined the crisis facing the poultry industry.
FairPlay said industry statistics showed that the job losses could extend to the grain industry – leaving up to 1.3 million dependants without any support.
FairPlay spokesman Ashoek Adhikari said the people who would suffer most would be the poor and rural communities. Adhikari said the dumping of chicken imports has already affected many developing nations.
“It is a story that plays out with many commodities but we have taken on the fight with the chicken industry on the basis that we want to show that you can fight these things and you can win and you can get to a point where you change the debate,” Adhikari said.
The SA Poultry Association (Sapa) recently said 12 chicken producers had been closed in the past five years. Sapa said between 4 000 and 5 000 jobs have been lost as a result, and thousands more could be threatened as companies scale back on production because of the imports.
Adhikari said FairPlay believed that food security was integrally tied to national security.
“If you don’t have food security you put your national security at risk, you import instability. By bringing the poultry industry to its knees we are going to pay a price well beyond what the notional price at the supermarket is. It is going to be a long-term price that has huge unintended consequences.”
According to the industry, poultry is the largest component of the country’s farming sector, contributing nearly 18% of the agricultural GDP last year.
Professor Mohammad Karaan, the dean of the AgriScience Faculty at Stellenbosch University said South Africa could invoke ways such as rationality and aggressive activism to change the situation.
Karaan said this involved the participation of all stakeholders from companies to unions and the government.
“This is the biggest crisis I observed in 20 years in agriculture where between 10 and 20% of your labour force is going to be lost,” Karaan said. “It is not an argument about how competitive are we, how efficient are we. It is an argument of national interest that says this industry cannot afford to lose 100 000 jobs.”