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For the first time in 15 years American chicken is being sold in South Africa. In June last year South Africa agreed to the tariff free import of 65 million kilograms of American chicken annually for the next nine years, ending a long standing dispute. It was a condition of inclusion in the new African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) that chicken, pork and beef from the USA be welcomed in this country.
According to Michael Froman, the US Trade Representative, 12 freight containers, each with 24 494 kg’s of chicken, has already arrived and been distributed in South Africa. Frozen drumsticks from Tyson Foods and House of Raeford Farms in North Carolina are sold under the trademark Jwayelani at the local supermarket group’s 21 outlets in and around Durban. American chicken producers prefer chicken breast meat and wings and regard the leg quarter, i.e. the thigh and the drum, as by-products and are exporting these pieces to South Africa at reduced prices. For many South African chicken farmers this means a possible threat to their livelihoods and those of their employees as they struggle to produce chicken at competitive and still at profitable prices.
SA Revenue Service reports that total poultry imports for 2015 amounted to 478 447t; an increase of 85 145t, or 21.6%, in comparison with 2014.The country also recorded a record level of poultry imports in July 2015 at 48,357 tons for the month. This equates to the equivalent of about 8.6 million birds per week. “To place this in perspective, Astral in its financial year 2015 processed on average 5 million birds per week. The local industry produces and processes about 19,5 million birds per week,” said Gary Arnold, director of business development at Astral Foods, “It is estimated that we lose a thousand jobs for every 10 000 tons of poultry imported.”
