François Baird of FairPlay and Kevin Lovell of the South African Poultry Association do not know their rump from their brisket. Over the past few weeks they have repeatedly said that the EU dumps bone-in chicken portions in the South African market. For educated and intelligent paid lobbyists, their loyalty to the paymaster cheque book is quite worrying.
Lovell knows what constitutes dumping and has brought a number of investigations into dumping against US, UK, Germany, Netherlands and Brazil. Baird, the founder of FairPlay, the anti-dumping movement, should know better than to purely take up reams of newspaper columns with paragraphs of vitriol and get to the grit of actually initiating a dumping investigation to back up his claims.
A short course in agricultural economics or even a visit to the local supermarket will demonstrate that rump is priced differently to brisket. One is a boneless cut, and each is targeted at specific market segments. Recently, in Parliament, the chairperson of the portfolio committee on trade and industry, MP Joanmariae Fubbs, asked Lovell whether selling each part of a cow at the best price is not good business, to which Lovell blustered that cows are usually cut up by butchers (as they should be).
Similarly, Lovell and Baird should recognise that every part of a chicken should be sold for the best price, and should not be watered down (with brine) to dilute the price achievable at retail.
We invite Lovell and his paid lobbyist to actually bring an application to the government to investigate dumping. If, as they have repeatedly claimed, imported meat is the problem, they should allow the International Trade Administration Commission of SA to investigate such allegations in an impartial and objective manner. If they were serious about their allegations, they would surely seek the appropriate remedy.
Instead of always looking for scapegoats, local industry should look abroad for opportunity. A globally competitive model which encompasses best practice in production and marketing methods is what suits South Africans’ needs best. Such a model will include exporting whole birds to our SADC neighbours, including Mozambique and Angola. These markets are easily accessible and currently import large volumes at attractive prices from Brazil and other producers.
A longer term strategy to incorporate exports to selected Middle East importing markets and accessing European high-value markets for boneless chicken, will create employment, a healthy local producer industry and valuable foreign currency in lines with the aims of the government’s Agricultural Policy Action Plan.
It is still baffling that local producers of chicken refuse to see an export model as an opportunity for growth and job creation. Increasing the size of the market SA can access allows the needs of the country and the development aims of the government — to increase employment and the reach of the agricultural sector — to be achieved.
If other industries are better marketers, let our local industry catch up and take a leaf out of their book and let the consumer benefit from the best quality, most affordable chicken. Why should working South Africans pay more to feed their families than is absolutely necessary?
If exports are the solution, let the producers and the government join hands to develop these markets.
Writing columns with fake fact does not help the government feed the country and also does not help the globally ineffective producers make the necessary adjustments to their business model to grow an employment-intensive industry and create jobs, value and wealth for the next generation of South Africans.
Georg SoutheyCEO of AMIE
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