The effects of government decisions on the South African poultry market.

Abstract

ABSTRACT The South African poultry industry makes up the largest portion of the nation’s agricultural sector and contributes significantly to the population’s daily protein consumption. Because of its importance, legislative changes made to the poultry industry require assessment to ensure its continued stability. This dissertation therefore calls attention to the impact of governmental legislation on the South African poultry industry. It also examines governmental involvement in inspections of slaughterhouses, import approval and follow up inspections. Furthermore, it determines that the government department responsible for inspections, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), is understaffed, underfunded and thus unable to perform its necessary duties adequately. In order to demonstrate the South African government’s impact on the poultry industry, this study discusses the relevance of new legislation with regard to employees, customers, supply chain, profitability, fair trade, sustainability, national food security, imports and dumping. The results of this study, which were gathered using semi-structured interviews with judgment sampling, highlight critical concerns and loopholes in the South African labelling legislation. For example, the expiration dates of products are often extended after processing. This serious oversight represents a mere fraction of the lack of health and safety regulations within the poultry industry, and leads to the inevitable risk of food contamination. The South African government has been slow to react to these concerns, only recently becoming actively involved in the formal process of safely exporting produced poultry to Europe. This dissertation argues that the South African government must overhaul its legislation on poultry and compile one uniform set of regulations from farm to table. These new regulations would be applicable to all local producers, importers, retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers. Overall, the current state of the South African poultry industry would improve drastically with an improved set of regulations, the guarantee of fair trade, prompt proactive government response to problems and co-operation among involved parties. KEYWORDS: Poultry Industry, National Food Security, Brining, South Africa, Imports, Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, Fair Trade, Dumping, Government