October 9, 2023

 

South Africa considers rebate on poultry meat duties as country suffers worst bird flu outbreak

 

 

South Africa is considering a temporary rebate on poultry meat import duties to mitigate the country's worst-ever bird flu outbreak, but this has elicited a warning from the South African Poultry Association (SAPA) that it could be the "final straw" for a local industry also battered by load shedding.

 

The International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) said on October 4 that Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel has directed it to consider "the creation of a temporary rebate provision on meat and edible offal, fresh, chilled or frozen fowls".

 

This followed an engagement between Patel and Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Thoko Didiza. The outbreak has led to the culling of about 2.68 million chickens as of September 21, and producers have culled about 30% of their flock in the past two months.

 

"The impact of the depletion of locally available poultry will have severe food security implications on the availability and prices of poultry, which is a basic, staple protein in South Africa," ITAC said.

 

ITAC said consideration would be given to whether the "temporary rebate" would only be applicable to ordinary customs duties or whether "rebating anti-dumping duties should also be included".

 

The directive has also been gazetted by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC).

 

However, Izaak Breitenbach, general manager of SAPA's broiler division, said the country's poultry producers already had their backs to the wall, reporting losses even before the bird flu outbreak as they wrestled with soaring costs associated with load shedding.

 

If any temporary rebate was imposed, it could send many over the precipice.

 

"Rainbow (Chicken), Quantum and Astral have already published and said that combined, the total loss due to avian influenza to date - and it hasn't stopped – is half a billion rand," said  Breitenbach. "And that is for only three companies, so one can just imagine what it is for the total industry.

 

"We will see job losses, and we will see economic decline in this industry."

 

He added that the DTIC should not be "doing anything at this point in time" in terms of rebates on tariffs, adding that the industry already had five countries open for imports.

 

"We have enough countries to supply the imports that are needed," said Breitenbach. "And we believe, without the rebate, we will see a significant increase in the amount of imports to address the potential shortage in chicken we will find in about eight weeks time."

- News24