Chicken importers back export push, but action must follow

This year marks a significant milestone for the FairPlay Movement: 10 years of asking difficult questions, challenging unfair practices and advocating for fair trade, local industry and the jobs and livelihoods that depend on them.

Founded in October 2016 in response to the growing impact of dumped chicken imports on South Africa’s poultry industry, FairPlay has spent the past decade shining a light on the consequences of unfair trade and making sure that the voices of farmers, workers, businesses and communities are not lost in the noise of policy, politics and economics.

Ten years is more than a milestone. For an advocacy organisation, longevity is evidence of persistence, purpose and the willingness to keep speaking up when an issue deserves attention. It means gathering the evidence, asking the uncomfortable questions, exposing what is not right and advocating for solutions that put fairness and South African interest at the heart of the conversation. 

FairPlay’s first decade has been shaped by that commitment: to investigate, to challenge and to advocate for a fairer playing field. Over the coming weeks, we’ll revisit some of the people, moments, campaigns and milestones that have shaped FairPlay’s journey, and explore why the work of organisations prepared to keep asking the hard questions remains so important. 

Ten years is worth celebrating. But perhaps more importantly, it is worth recognising as ten years of not backing down.

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WATTPoultry reports that Rainbow is expanding its poultry export drive into the Middle East and African markets.

This expansion is a welcome sign of movement on a core pillar of South Africa’s Poultry Sector Master Plan: opening foreign markets to local chicken producers. 

For years, the domestic industry has been forced into defensive mode, fighting to survive the devastating influx of dumped, predatory imports that crippled local producers and cost jobs and growth.

Seeing Rainbow step up its export drive, alongside long-standing efforts by producers like Sovereign Foods, shows what local agriculture can achieve when given room to grow. 

Accessing regional markets via the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and securing accreditation for European and UK standards are essential steps. However, an industry export drive cannot succeed in a vacuum. FairPlay has repeatedly pointed out that while local producers continue to invest in international compliance, food safety, and processing capacity, progress on export volumes remains far too slow without urgent, aggressive backing from government and export associations. 

State support must match industry investment by fast-tracking trade agreements, resolving costly veterinary and health barriers, and clearing infrastructure bottlenecks at local ports.

Exporting South African chicken is not just good business for individual companies, it is a vital strategy to defend local jobs, bolster food security, earn foreign exchange, and secure the long-term future of our agricultural supply chain.

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Unemployment means poverty, hunger and malnutrition. South Africa has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, and it is increasing steadily.

The unemployment rate has just risen to 33.6% in the second quarter of 2026, from 32.7% in the previous quarter.

South Africa officially has 8.5 million people without jobs, of whom 5 million are classified as youths (aged 15 to 34). The youth unemployment rate is a horrific 47.4%.

Since 2018, when the unemployment rate was far lower, FairPlay has consistently pointed to the need to remove the 15% value added tax (VAT) from the chicken portions most consumed by poor people. Just as consistently, the government has refused.

The latest statistics are evidence of increasing hunger and misery. They also increase the urgency for government to support VAT-free chicken, South Africa’s most widely consumed meat protein. 

Chicken helps feed poor people and their children. As other household costs increase, adding to the stress on family budgets, chicken should be free of VAT.

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The United States has a glut of unsold chicken meat. South Africa can expect more dumped chicken imports as US producers seek to offload the surplus.

Key takeaways:

• US chicken oversupply: US poultry producers scaled up production expecting high consumer demand that failed to materialise, leaving them with a surplus of unsold brown meat and leg quarters.
• Risk to South Africa: To offload the surplus, US producers are likely to increase exports of unwanted chicken cuts to South Africa.
• Duty-free quota exploitation: Because South Africa grants the US a large quota free from anti-dumping duties, US exporters have significant room to ramp up these imports and undercut local markets.

Oversupply of chicken in America can be bad news for South Africa. 

For years, US producers have made their money off prime cuts such as breast meat, which is in high demand in the norther hemispheres. They have sold the unwanted “spare parts” portions such as leg quarters at low prices – often below cost – to South Africa and other countries.

The US can dump chicken portions in South Africa without penalty. Since 2016, they have forced on South Africa a huge quota of US chicken imports free of the anti-dumping duties that South Africa would otherwise apply.

In recent years, that quota has not nearly been filled, and imports from the US have been a quarter and less of what they used to be. That may change now that US chicken producers have oversupplied their own market and will be sitting on an increasing mound of frozen “spare parts” – the surplus brown meat portions exported in cheap, frozen bulk packs.

The US glut was reported by the Wall Street Journal, which said poultry producers had ramped up supply in anticipation of “an onslaught of consumer demand” that didn’t happen. Consumers have stuck to beef, despite record high prices, instead of switching to chicken. And fewer bird flu outbreaks in the summer months meant reduced mortality levels.

“Poultry companies are producing more chicken than consumers can buy, depressing wholesale prices and squeezing their profits,” the Wall Street Journal reported. 

That means the US has plenty of scope to dump more chicken in South Africa. Imports from the US in June were up by nearly 30% from May, but on low volumes. 

Watch this space.

There’s no consumer benefit

South African consumers don’t benefit from predatory chicken imports, but importers do. These imports mean big profits for importers, not low prices for consumers.

Dumped and low-priced chicken imports should in theory result in cheaper chicken on retail shelves.

Instead, dumped chicken imports are sold at prices similar to that of locally produced chicken.

Profits go to importers and middlemen, with no benefit for the millions of poor people for whom chicken is a primary source of meat protein.

Local poultry producers, who for decades have supplied affordable chicken to the local market, are put under strain because there is no way any of them can compete with dumped import prices.

Except for chicken importers, dumped chicken is a lose-lose situation.

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The argument that cheap chicken imports do not result in cheaper chicken for consumers was reinforced by FairPlay founder Francois Baird.

Baird was interviewed by Moneyweb on the proposed renewal of anti-dumping duties on poultry imports from the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands.

He said poultry producers abroad sell white meat in their own markets, and are left with a surplus of brown meat and bone-in cuts, which they sell far more cheaply elsewhere.

This dumped chicken then destroys the local industry, first impacting smaller-scale producers. Baird added that the poultry industry is the largest agricultural player in South Africa.

“FairPlay is in favour of free trade within World Trade Organisation rules. These rules allow for tariffs and for anti-dumping levies,” Baird said.

He noted that, while the large chicken producers have made good profits recently, in recent years they “lost R9 billion due to bird flu and spent enormous sums generating their own electricity during load shedding, coping with water scarcity, and dealing with expensive transport due to infrastructure problems”.

South African trade regulator ITAC has invited comments from affected parties on the anti-dumping review.

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The United States is moving to extend for a further two years the AGOA trade agreement that offers duty-free benefits African countries.

The extension, to the end of 2028, has passed the US Senate, BusinessTechreports, and must be approved by the House of Representatives before being sent to President Donald Trump for assent.

While the South African government will welcome the fact that South Africa remains among the beneficiary countries, and that threats to remove it have not materialised, most AGOA benefits exist on paper only. President Trump’s worldwide tariffs have negated the duty-free access to US markets that South African exports used to enjoy.

South Africa’s poultry industry, however, could face another two years of the huge annual quota of chicken the US can export to South Africa free of the anti-dumping duties that should apply.

The poultry industry has applied in vain to have the quota scrapped, because in terms of the AGOA legislation, it should exist only while other South African industries enjoy beneficial access to the US. As US tariffs have nullified those benefits, the poultry industry argues, the quota should fall away.

Following a lack of government response, the industry has instituted legal action to force the termination of the US quota.

The government may have a way round this legal dilemma. The quota may instead be included in a South African trade deal with the US, which has yet to be finalised. That would make it a permanent feature, not related to the AGOA agreement.

US trade negotiators are reportedly demanding an  end to all South African tariffs on its chicken exports to South Africa. This would include general tariffs as well as the anti-dumping duties that have been in place on American chicken portions since 2000.

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