Kevin Lovell
WHILE trying to spare your readers the tit-for-tat of countering the litany of lies passed off as fact by David Wolpert of the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters (“The myth of poultry job losses”, Business Report, June 15), the latest salvo of baseless misinformation must be corrected.
In addition to the 107 857 jobs supported by the local poultry industry, a further 18 150 jobs in the grain sector are dependent on our industry, which is the largest user of local soya, and second only to people as the largest user of maize.
This means more than 126 000 people are reliant on our survival, which was presented in this way to the Parliamentary portfolio committee – where Wolpert was present.
His claim that current import volumes would wipe out local jobs in just four years because every 10 000 tons of imported chicken costs 1 000 jobs is laughably simplistic and woefully ignorant. Jobs can only be lost once, not repeatedly, so meat imports, as well as accompanying offal, take away local production opportunities.
Further, it is critical to understand the ratio effect. Every kilogram of live chicken delivered to an abattoir results in 720g of meat, 22 percent of edible offal and about 6 percent of blood and feathers. We slaughtered about 958 million birds last year, with an average meat portion of 1 230g, meaning we produced 1 178 340 tons of meat.
Since we support 126 000 jobs, this equates to roughly 1 000 jobs for every 10 000 tons of meat produced locally. If Wolpert had bothered to look carefully at my presentation to Parliament, he would have seen that I clearly identified the relationship as applying to the meat that we we produced.
The 65 000 tons of imports agreed to by the local industry therefore equals 6 500 jobs lost if this quantity is in addition to existing volumes.
The economists we retained to model the various African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) scenarios were quite clear that the US imports were likely to be additive. Separate work for the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries reached a similar conclusion, meaning the 6 500 job loss potential is a maximum number. If the imports are substitutive – replacing imports from the EU for example – then job losses will be reduced.
This can only be measured after the fact and losing jobs is not something that South Africa can afford to do, wherever those jobs might lie.
To verify the accuracy of my figures, all Wolpert has to do is visit our website where this data is readily available, instead of disingenuously using the sweeping innuendo of intellectual idleness.
While this is not surprising, one would imagine more imports would be welcomed by the importers, whose total poultry imports last year (including offal, turkey and duck) were 393 303 tons at a value of about R4.09 billion. This is hardly small fry, so the real question is why the continued attack on a local poultry industry that has stepped in to safeguard the Agoa renewal for our country? We should be told.
Kevin Lovell is the chief executive of the SA Poultry Association.