Feathers fly in chicken protest

Published Feb 2, 2017

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Pretoria – The livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of South Africans dependent on the poultry industry stand to be ruined by the dumping of chicken in the country, and on Wednesday industry players marched in Pretoria against that action, in what they called the Day of Misery.

They marched on the offices of the European Union (EU), whose countries they accused of illegally dumping chicken pieces in the country’s market.

“Today because of the action of the EU, more than 1 000 former chicken industry employees at one plant in KwaZulu-Natal have no jobs, and up to 10 000 dependants have no support,” one speaker at the march said.

He said it was only the start of job losses in the country in 2017 and it was owing to the "unlawful chicken dumping" allowed by the EU.

The speaker was one of many who marched to the Pretoria offices to protest the flood of chicken pieces in the country’s stores.

He delivered a petition to the EU and said: “Thousands of more jobs will go, in addition to the thousands already lost, unless this dumping stops."

The march saw workers, unions, company bosses and executives join forces and march against the threat to their jobs and the livelihoods of dependants. “Stop chicken dumping, stop killing SA businesses and jobs,” they chanted.

“In a country with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, and where many who lose jobs remain unemployed, you are adding misery,” the speaker said.

“The South African chicken industry rejects with contempt, EU assertions that the real problem affecting the chicken industry are structural problems and not EU imports,” he said.

He added that the country’s poultry industry was modern, efficient and well able to compete effectively against fair competition.

“We are among the most efficient chicken producers in the world, producing chicken pieces at 25% lower cost than EU countries,” he said.

“But no market, no matter how efficient, can compete against dumping. If tariffs are raised then prices will be lowered to get rid of the frozen surplus they have of chicken leg quarters.”

He said the EU was well aware that chicken leg quarters, unwanted in Europe, were disposed of as surplus and dumped in any market that would take them at any price.

Some countries had closed their markets to that practice but barriers in South Africa were minimal.

This killed an industry which had the potential to expand and grow and create thousands more jobs, the stakeholders argued.

They said 80% of all leg quarters in South African shops were from the EU. They said they had a simple, single demand for the EU – to stop illegal dumping and destroying their industry.

Pretoria News

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