By Francois Baird
Founder of the FairPlay movement
President Cyril Ramaphosa has failed South Africa’s poultry producers, and in particular small-scale farmers, by not addressing their needs in his State of the Nation (SONA) address.
SONA was the perfect occasion to offer some help to a sector that is critical for South Africa’s food security yet it is in big trouble, and heading for a crisis. It is being hammered by a perfect storm of rising feed costs, failing infrastructure such as water supply and daily power outages. Hugely higher electricity prices will hit them in a few months’ time, when they are at their weakest.
FairPlay had hoped that in at least some of these sectors, President Ramaphosa would have announced relief for our poultry farmers. Some welcome relief was offered, in the form of input vouchers for small-scale farmers and the possibility of rural road and water services upgrades. However, he let the poultry industry down in four important areas.
He could have announced tax relief for the diesel farmers who are buying to generate their own electricity, because of Eskom’s failings. Farmers are spending millions a day to keep their operations going and their workers in employment.
He could have enforced his request to Eskom to delay or moderate the planned 18.6% price increase from April this year. Eskom is ignoring, or misinterpreting this request.
He could have instructed the Treasury to revisit the request from FairPlay and poultry producers to remove the 15% value added tax from some chicken portions.
Vat-free chicken, and particularly the frozen packs known as IQF (individually quick frozen) portions, would bring immediate relief to low income households, which rely on chicken for their meat protein. He could have announced an emergency meeting of the poultry master plan’s executive oversight committee for government and the poultry industry to draw up a crisis plan.
President Ramaphosa has done none of these things.
It remains to be seen whether the state of disaster to combat the electricity crisis brings any relief to poultry producers, both large and small, who need a 24-hour electricity supply.
The poultry sector is a strategic national industry that feeds the nation. It supplies 66% of the meat consumed in the country, far more than beef, pork or lamb. Chicken is popular and affordable, particularly for poor people struggling with rising food prices.
The poultry industry employs some 50 000 people directly, and thousands more in the grain industry and other and other parts of the poultry value chain. It is the grain industry’s biggest customer, buying nearly half of the maize and most of the soya produced in the country.
It is the second-largest component of South Africa’s agricultural sector, putting more than R50 billion into the economy each year.
Yet poultry farmers, in dire straits and looking to President Ramaphosa for help, got little or nothing. For them, SONA was yet another disaster.