Durban – eThekwini Municipality has given hope to the small town of Hammarsdale, which recently lost thousands of jobs in the chicken farming sector.
Today the eThekwini council is expected to approve plans by the municipality’s real estate division to acquire two of the farms being sold by RCL Foods Consumer (Pty) Ltd, the parent company of Rainbow Chicken.
Acting deputy city manager for Economic Development, Philip Sithole, said the municipality wanted to purchase at least two of the farms, Uitkomst and Doornrug, from RCL Foods Consumer for no more than R15 million.
He said the purchase would be in line with the city’s agenda to develop emerging farmers.
If everything went according to plan, Sithole said, the city would own and begin operating the farms by June this year.
“The farms would serve to introduce the youth to farming and promote agriculture in the area among other objectives,” he said.
“As a city, we have the project to develop emerging farmers.”
Rainbow Chicken announced a few months ago that it was facing severe sales and economic pressure brought on by cheap chicken imports.
It was forced to retrench an estimated 2000 workers in the Hammarsdale area alone and closed several operations.
“Should the transaction be approved by council and the sale goes through, we will continue with chicken farming and plant other things that could grow there,” said Sithole.
“The idea is that we should introduce the youth to farming and they will benefit, as the government which has previously been buying from big companies will buy from these people."
“Co-operatives will be formed to run the farms and they will benefit from the running of these farms."
“We hope that those people who were retrenched from Rainbow Chicken will also be part of those (co-operatives) so they can impart some of their skills,” said Sithole.
Opposition parties in the council, however, were not impressed with the proposal.
They said the city was straying into dangerous territory as this might create unreasonable expectations that the council would intervene in other troubled companies.
“It is not the city’s job to rescue businesses,” said DA leader Zwakele Mncwango.
“The city should be creating an investor-friendly environment where investors can come in to invest,” he said.
Heinz de Boer, also of the DA, said the collapse of the Rainbow Chicken operations in Hammarsdale was a direct result of failed national government policies that allowed for cheap chicken imports to be dumped in the country.
“Countries like Brazil are dumping their chicken here and they are thriving while our people are suffering. That is the problem,” he said.