Durban — After five years of uncertainty, poultry farming appears to be bouncing back in KwaZulu-Natal.
So much so that major poultry company, Rainbow Chicken, opened a new plant at a cost of R220 million in Hammarsdale west of Durban on Monday.
It was attended by Agriculture and Land Reform Minister Thoko Didiza and Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ibrahim Patel.
Speaking at the event, Patel said the government was happy that its efforts to protect the local poultry industry from unfair competition had yielded results. He said the government had to intervene in 2017 when industry giant, Rainbow Chicken, closed down some of its plants because of cheap imports, which he referred to as, “market dumping” by foreign countries.
Patel said to discourage such practices the government had to increase import tariffs. Drought and bird flu had also impacted the industry, he said, but cheap imports were the main reason as local chicken breeders had to compete unfairly in the market.
“As a government, we had to come up with anti-dumping policies and increased tariffs to protect our local breeders but we made it clear that protection alone was not enough, and we needed to create a market of export and secured markets in countries like China and Saudi Arabia. We are happy our intervention has yielded positive results and we now see growth in the poultry industry,” said Patel.
Rainbow’s managing director Marthinus Stander said business was slowly bouncing back, and they had to re-employ the workers laid off in 2017.
Apart from opening plant one, the company is in the process of building plant two at a cost R400 million. The opening of the plant on Monday coincided with the 60-year anniversary of the company.
In 2017, the company retrenched more than 1 300 workers. This was attributed to the dumping of foreign products from Brazil.
“Countries like the US don’t eat chicken except for using it for burgers so as a result they ‘dumped’ wings and feet in countries like South Africa.
“Before 2017 Rainbow Chicken was producing 1.2 million chickens a week but had to cut this number by half which forced it to lay off workers who became redundant. It also sold 15 farms out of 25.”
On Monday, the company announced that it was producing 1.1 million chickens a week and was hoping to reach 1.5 million. This has resulted in the re-employment of 750 workers who were retrenched, the company added.
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