The main objective of the plan by the department of trade and industry (DTI) of the Republic of South Africa is to drive domestic demand and protecting the local industry, feeding costs, meeting safety and veterinary requirements, as well as compliance to boost exports, and transformation of the South African sector as a whole.This plan accommodates both large and small-scale farmers.
The South Africapoultry industry is the biggest agricultural industry and there is room for growth. The sector value chain currently employsan excess of 100,000 people. The general manager of the Broiler Organisation within the South African Poultry Association acknowledged that for the plan to be successfully implemented, “there is need to invest about US$10 million in the processing facilities in the country. A further US$11 million is to be invested in farming to produce the chickens. This will enable us to increase our production by 10 to 20 percent by the end of 2022,” said IzaakBreitenbach.
The masterplan aims to double the current output by 2022. This will create the capacity for at least 120 large scale farmers to produce at least 12 million birds per cycle. Steps will be taken to focus on ownership throughout the value chain, and not just on farming. The masterplan will identify a quarter of the biggest small-scale farmers and develop a business planfor each of them.
All efforts including funding, will be geared towards developing and growing these poultry farmers to become a bigger player within the value chain. Its expected that is there is significant development to the entire value chain, from grain and poultry production to feed manufacturing, logistics, and retail, economic growth will be boosted.
Another key element of the masterplan is to stimulate local demand to supplant unfair trade imports. “We need protection against unfair trade, such as under-declaration of product whereby, for example, a product is bought in a foreign country for US$1.37/kg and declared at US$0.69/kg when it enters South Africa and so tariffs are paid only on US$0.69 and not US$1.37,” said Breitenbach. The South African Minister of Economic Development, Ebrahim Patel, has also announced that agreement has been reached with other BRIC countries to work together to weed out under-declaration and product declaration under the wrong tariff heading and South Africa is set to apply for further anti-dumping duties in 2020.
