The South African Poultry Association (SAPA) reaffirms its support for the Industry Master Plan, and will continue to work towards the objectives laid out within. The Association remains enthusiastic and optimistic about the benefits of the Master Plan, and is actively engaging with the Industry and the Executive Oversight Committee to ensure the Master Plan achieves its objectives, and realises these benefits for South Africa and South Africans. Any suggestion that SAPA has withdrawn its support for, or participation in, the Master Plan is incorrect. 

“The industry and its producers are fully committed to the industry Master Plan,” said Izaak Breitenbach, head of SAPA’s Broiler Organisation. “Implementation of the Master Plan has the potential to create nearly 5 000 jobs and more than R5bn of economic growth for South Africa and South Africans. This is far better for the country than what has been happening – importing chicken and exporting jobs and the economic wellbeing of South Africans to countries that need it less than we do.” 

“The South African poultry industry is world class, and a strategic asset to the nation,” Breitenbach continued. “For more than 90 years, the poultry industry has provided food security to millions of South Africans at a cost as low as the lowest-cost producers in the world. Illegal, illicit, and predatory trade – not imports – have caused the industry and the people of South Africa tremendous harm for more than 10 years.” 

The Industry Master Plan, negotiated and signed by a collective of approximately 40 constituents, including labour, importers, and trade unions, was a landmark agreement to stop unfair and illegal trade, while rolling out a plan to facilitate sustainable transformation and growth. 

“When you have a competitive industry, free of illegal or unfair trade, localisation is eminently desirable and is unanimously supported by the industry and its producers,” Breitenbach said. 

The poultry industry had demonstrated its ongoing commitment to the tenets of the Industry Master Plan; it had invested more than 80% of its commitment to enable market access for black producers, assisted new black farmers in building 79 brand new, state-of-the-art poultry houses in less than 24 months, and provided assistance to 21 independent farms. 

“When considering the devastating impacts of the Covid-19 lockdowns, the outbreaks of avian influenza, and the civil unrest, the industry not only kept its commitments, it also supplied product when imports were stuck in a locked port, and continued to feed the hungry,” concluded Breitenbach.