Question NW1529 to the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development

Reply:

The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) contributes to the Poultry Master Plan mainly from the Sanitary and Phytosanitary point of view. Veterinary guidelines relevant to poultry have been updated. This is supplemented with training of developing poultry farmers to ensure their participation in the sector. Challenges that are identified with some importing countries’ legislation are constantly being addressed to ensure compliance.

DALRRD continues to encourage poultry producers to use existing compartments which are monitored on a regular basis. An important market that has been identified includes Saudi Arabia and the questions they are asking are being addressed. Heat treated poultry is now consistently being exported to the United Arab Emirates as a health certificate has now been agreed to.

The poultry industry and DALRRD are working on an acceptable residue monitoring programme to make it possible for more markets to be opened. Recently, the United Kingdom has provided guidelines that will be taken into consideration as negotiations begin. The Sub-Region has managed to open its doors for South African poultry despite concerns of outbreaks of Avian Influenza in some provinces.

There are response mechanisms in place which are triggered whenever; there is a case of dumping from any of the country’s trade partners. In the year since the Poultry Master Plan, a new tariff was put on imported poultry to provide protection to local production. Industry complaints with regard to the observed dumping of bone-in chicken meat imports in the Southern African Customs Union market received a positive response in the form of Provisional Anti-Dumping duties imposed on the products in question. Anti-Dumping duties were imposed on the following countries by the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) between January and June 2022:

No.	Country	Rate of Duty Prior to January 2022	New Anti-Dumping Duties from January 2022 to June 2022
1	Brazil	MFN Duty of 62%	265%
2	Denmark	Duty free	67.4%
3	Ireland	Duty free	158.4%
4	Poland	Duty free	96.9%
5	Spain	Duty free	85.8%

To support the implementation of the poultry master plan, DALRRD entered into a collaboration with the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) to provide blended funding to poultry producers and expand production to meet the local demand as well as for exports. The IDC has funded 5 black commercial producers to date at a combined value of R152 million of which R77 million was the grant portion, creating 149 jobs. The five applicants were from Gauteng, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal. Three of the approved transactions were poultry farm expansions with an average cycle of 430 000 chickens per cycle.

Furthermore, in the 2021/22 financial year, the DALRRD made available R130, 249 million from CASP and Ilima/Letsema as shown in the table below. This investment was meant to support 3 857 poultry farmers with poultry structures, feed and medication, and create 2 183 jobs; with an average cycle of 31 440 chickens per cycle. The table below further shows the planned outputs per province. The Provincial Departments of Agriculture implement these programmes and the 2021/22 annual reports are being audited.

Province	CASP Allocation R'000	Ilima/Letsema Allocation R'000	Total Invested in Poultry in 2021/22 through Conditional Grants R'000	Planned Outputs	CASP Jobs	Ilima/Letsema Jobs	Total Jobs	Farmers Supported
Eastern Cape	4 300	3 600	7 900	1 Poultry structure; production inputs	23	0	23	15
Free State	3 500	1 522	5 022	1 Poultry structure; production inputs	4	0	4	2
Gauteng	11 491	14 500	25 991	3 Poultry structures; production inputs	6	70	76	35
KwaZulu Natal	22 682	0	22 682	3 Poultry structures; production inputs	348	0	348	386
Limpopo	1 544	14 370	15 914	1 Poultry structures; production inputs	23	1 589	1 612	1 046
Mpumalanga	30 150	0	30 150	4 Poultry structures; production inputs	55	0	55	9
Northern Cape	3 100	0	3 100	1 Poultry structure; production inputs	6	0	6	7
North West	10 600	0	10 600	2 Poultry structures; production inputs	22	0	22	2
Western Cape		8 890	8 890	1 Poultry structure; production inputs	22	15	37	54
Total	87 367	42 882	130 249		509	1 674	2 183	1556