SA’s current expanded unemployment rate is close to 50%; nearly 60% of our population are designated as poor.
How do poor, unemployed people feed themselves and their families?
Government grants play a role, but they’re hardly the answer.
Food inflation has been on the rise for months now, with meat and chicken leading the way. South Africans consume close to 40kg of chicken per capita per year — among the highest in the world. It’s the cheapest form of animal protein on the market.
The local poultry sector recently announced that there’s scope for a 7% increase on chicken prices. As hard as that is to swallow, there is some justification: huge increases in feed prices, coupled with pandemic and lockdown pains, are forcing producers’ hands.
But it’s common knowledge that local poultry is engaged in one of its regular anti-dumping investigations against imports. Hardly a year goes by when the local industry does not apply for a tariff increase of some sort on imports.
Let’s not forget that huge chicken tariff increases were granted a little over a year ago.
Ebrahim Patel, minister of trade, industry & competition, has shown of late that he is wedded to the idea of promoting local industry by using tariffs to block or limit imports.
It seems that SA citizens, many living below the bread line, are viewed as nothing more than collateral damage in a drive for greater poultry market share.
D Wolpert
Rivonia
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