From a chicken farmer’s point of view, the imbalances in SA’s trade with the EU are worse than trade and industry minister Rob Davies is letting on ("SA Trade with EU Remains Unbalanced", February 18). Even with the bird flu restrictions that slowed EU exports to SA we import far more EU chicken than we export to them. The EU bears much of the blame for this, but our inadequately resourced department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries’ food-safety inspectorate enables EU countries to block SA chicken on technical grounds. If the trade in chicken is to be more balanced, both SA and the EU need to do more to level the playing field. EU countries target the SA market, dumping chicken leg quarters below their cost of production, while EU producers make their profits by selling breast meat at high prices. South Africans love leg quarters, and the loss of market share means all of us who produce chicken have had to limit our potential growth. Our industry is in crisis. Now we have a n...
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