Brazil import ban should not lead to shortages of chicken meat in South Africa

SOUTH African poultry producers have the capacity to make up for the loss of Brazilian chicken meat imports due to an outbreak of avian influenza (bird flu) in that country.

- IZAAK BREITENBACH

We are currently producing about 21.5 million chickens per week, and the industry has the capacity to increase this by about another million birds per week.

As the winter months are a period of lower demand for chicken, the additional supply should be sufficient to ensure there are no shortages of chicken meat, or price increases because of shortages.

Brazil announced the bird flu outbreak at the end of last week. As a result, the Department of Agriculture is expected to ban the import of all fresh and frozen chicken from Brazil.

Brazil has no compartmentalisation agreement with South Africa, which would have allowed imports from other parts of Brazil except the region(s) or province(s) affected by the outbreak.

South African producers supply more than 80% of the chicken consumed in country. Brazil supplies most of the chicken imports, which equated to 18% of local production last year.