The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) expired in September 2025. Will the United States’ 72 000-tonne chicken quota disappear with it? Unfortunately, history teaches us that temporary trade concessions have a way of becoming permanent fixtures.
The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) expired in September 2025. Will the United States’ 72 000-tonne chicken quota disappear with it? Unfortunately, history teaches us that temporary trade concessions have a way of becoming permanent fixtures.
The quota was born in 2015, when South Africa agreed to allow duty-free entry for U.S. chicken portions, free of the long-standing anti-dumping duties, to which the U.S. objected. The deal was sold as a once-off compromise to preserve automotive, steel and agricultural exports to the U.S. under AGOA. Ten years later, that “once-off” looks very much like forever.
Even as AGOA’s renewal hangs in the balance, the quota lives on. Government officials, in a series of opaque negotiations, appear prepared to retain the concession to appease American counterparts. Thus, a “temporary” measure has become structural policy; a monument to diplomatic expediency!
The economic cost is plain enough: 72,000 tonnes of bone-in portions, primarily leg quarters, would be allowed to enter the country each year without duties. Each tonne would represent South African chickens not raised, South African feed not sold, and South African jobs not created.
The only good news is that the US is not nearly filling that quota at the moment, because bird flu has spread across America. That, however, is temporary relief; the quota is a serious threat, in the medium and longer terms, to South African poultry producers.
Even small volumes displace domestic production. Spread over years, and potentially rising rapidly if the US gets bird flu under control, the quota could drain billions from rural economies.
The rationale offered by government is that sacrificing one sector protects others; a form of industrial triage, as it were, a decision taken in the interests of the broader economy. It keeps the patient alive but leaves a bleeding wound.
Worse, it sets a precedent: South Africa has proved willing to trade its poultry industry in order to benefit other sectors, and trading partners will take note. Brazil, Argentina, even the European Union will have observed the lesson: push hard enough (especially on poultry issues), and South Africa will fold.
Three policy paths now lie ahead:
One: The US quota becomes permanent, enshrined in new trade terms and locking the poultry industry into structural disadvantage.
Two: The concession expands under US pressure, freeing additional chicken products from tariffs and suppressing additional local capacity.
Three: SA reclaims its trade sovereignty, accepts that the quota has expired and should not be reintroduced, and restores the principles of fair competition.
Only the third path aligns with national interest. Anything less entrenches dependency and signals, once again, that policy promises are negotiable.
For all its size, the 72 000-tonne quota’s real weight is symbolic: a measure of whether South Africa can say “no” when “no” is the only responsible answer.
Trade policy may seem an abstract affair, but in South Africa it manifests in children’s bodies.
Trade policy may seem an abstract affair, but in South Africa it manifests in children’s bodies.
28.8% of children under five are stunted, including the roughly 1.7 million young lives already marked by chronic undernutrition.
The connection between protein policy and child development is not theoretical; it is nutritional science!
Chicken is the most affordable source of animal protein in South Africa. When production expands, prices stabilise and access widens. When imports dominate, the opposite occurs.
The May 2025 ban on Brazilian imports following avian influenza was a grim case study: offal and mechanically deboned meat doubled in price within weeks, potentially cutting protein from the diets of the poor and from school feeding menus.
The implications extend beyond hunger. Stunted children suffer lifelong cognitive impairment, reduced productivity and weaker immunity. South Africa loses an estimated US $1.1 billion annually in GDP from micronutrient deficiencies alone.
Within SADC, the situation is worse: one in three children is stunted, and over 40 million people face chronic food insecurity each year. Poultry should be part of the solution; it’s efficient to produce, easy to distribute, rich in essential nutrients, yet regional production lags while imports soar.
SA knows how to produce poultry efficiently; it can be farmed year- round and scaled to meet rising population demand (some capacity is currently laying idle). This has made chicken the anchor of affordable nutrition in a country where economic pressures continue to squeeze household budgets. Removing the 15% value added tax (VAT) would make it even more affordable.
South Africa should be the regional anchor for food security, supplying neighbours through initiatives such as the Southern Africa Poultry Initiative. Instead, its own dependency on imports undermines that role.
A country that imports 20% – 25% of its staple protein cannot credibly champion regional self-sufficiency. This was highlighted by the 2023 bird flu outbreaks, and load-shedding; these shocks rippled through the entire food chain, including neighbouring countries who depend on South African poultry who also felt the squeeze. When local production slows, these regional markets experience immediate shortages.
Ensuring the resilience of our poultry sector strengthens regional stability and trade, a critical element of long- term African food security.
The developmental timeline of a child born in 2025 mirrors the policy horizon of this special report. By 2035, that child will be ten years old. Whether they thrive or struggle will depend, in part, on whether South
Africa has built local capacity or outsourced its food security. The 72 000-tonne U.S. quota and the 325 000 tonnes imported from Brazil are not mere statistics, this is protein that could have nourished South African children but instead sustained foreign farmers.
The moral of the story is uncomfortable but clear: trade policy is child-nutrition policy. One cannot claim to fight poverty while undermining the industries that feed the poor.
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By 2035, South Africa’s poultry industry could look radically different, depending on whether policymakers choose to create, or continue allowing things to stagnate. The divergence between these futures is not theoretical; it can be measured in jobs created or lost, tonnes of food produced or imported, and children nourished or stunted.
By 2035, South Africa’s poultry industry could look radically different, depending on whether policymakers choose to create, or continue allowing things to stagnate. The divergence between these futures is not theoretical; it can be measured in jobs created or lost, tonnes of food produced or imported, and children nourished or stunted.
The sector’s fate will hinge on decisions made in the next few years: how the state enforces trade protections, compensates farmers for bird flu losses, handles infrastructure investment, and interprets the Competition Commission’s inquiry into market structure. Together, these choices will determine whether South Africa’s poultry industry becomes a driver of national growth or a casualty of policy drift.
Scenario A: The Path of Creation
In this scenario, government policy aligns consistently with the 2019 Poultry Sector Master Plan, and stays there. The 72,000-tonne U.S. quota expires with AGOA and is not renewed as a trade concession to the US. Brazil and others face duties when they dump product below cost. Infrastructure investment continues, bird flu culling is compensated, and vaccination protocols are funded and practical.
Under these conditions, the sector finally fulfills its potential. Weekly slaughter rises from 21.5 million birds today to well over 22.5 million, growing further as new investments flow in. Projected production climbs from 1.59 million tonnes (2024) to 1.9 million by 2030 and potentially 2.2 million tonnes by 2035; a 30%+ increase in output.
Employment continues to expand correspondingly; for every one job created in the poultry industry, another is created throughout the value-chain, which currently supports around 134,000 jobs. If the growth trend continues by 2035, total employment could exceed 175,000 throughout the value-chain,providing scarce work in rural areas where youth unemployment (exceeding 60%) is of particular concern.
The industry’s economic contribution would surge, from R72 billion today to a projected R100 billion by 2035, while feed consumption rises in tandem (sustaining local maize farmers whose livelihoods depend on stable demand). Exports hasten; with better cold-chain infrastructure and adherence to export standards, poultry exports to SADC could double as the region is already reliant on South African poultry. Halal-certified production could also capture growing markets in the Middle East and the UK, which reopened to South African chicken in 2024.
And perhaps most importantly, protein affordability improves. As production expands and competition strengthens, prices stabilise and decline in real terms. School feeding schemes gain access to reliable, affordable protein. Malnutrition rates begin to fall.
This is a future where trade policy, industrial investment, and social impact converge.
Scenario B: (Continuing down) The Path of Stagnation
In this version of 2035, policy contradictions persist and drift replaces direction. The U.S. quota of dumped chicken remains in place indefinitely, more likely, it will expand along with imports. Additional trade concessions erode local competitiveness. The Competition Commission, misreading integration as monopoly, recommends structural fragmentation that raises costs rather than reducing them, destroying thousands of livelihoods in the process. Bird flu outbreaks go uncompensated, and infrastructure decay continues.
Producers respond rationally to irrational policy: they retreat. Weekly slaughter capacity falls from 21.5 million birds to historic levels below 20 million. Total production drops. Direct employment declines dramatically, reverberating through the value-chain which sheds a job for every job lost in the poultry industry.
GDP contribution contracts from R72 billion to historical levels (<R50 billion), while local grain farmers lose stable feed demand. Export dreams vanish entirely; Brazil and other global players fill regional demand on their current path to global domination.
Worse still, transformation stalls. Without growth, small black producers who entered under the Master Plan face mounting debt, idle infrastructure, and vanishing markets. Import dependence deepens.
The human toll is sobering. As imports dominate and local supply contracts, retail chicken prices rise. School feeding budgets stretch thinner, and
child malnutrition (already affecting 28.8% of children under five) worsens dramatically. The erosion of policy consistency becomes visible in the bodies of hungry children.
With the FairPlay Movement approaching its tenth anniversary in 2026, it can bear both witness and warning: Since 2016, FairPlay has fought dumping, challenged damaging trade concessions, defended South African producers and workers against unfair competition. The results prove that policy enforcement works: imports of bone-in chicken portions have dropped by 83% since 2019. Yet new headwinds threaten those gains. Trade deals negotiated
in secrecy, avian flu outbreaks without compensation, and a regulatory inquiry that questions the structure sustaining local production all risk unravelling half a decade of progress under the Poultry Master Plan.
The next ten years will determine whether South Africa’s poultry sector fulfills its potential as a strategic R72-billion national asset, or whether it succumbs to the slow corrosion of neglect. The cost of indecision will not be borne by balance sheets alone, it will be carried in the malnutrition statistics of the next generation.
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FairPlay’s 2025 annual report reflects on our activities over the past year, and looks forward to what needs to be done as we head into 2026, and beyond.
FairPlay’s 2025 annual report reflects on our activities over the past year, and looks forward to what needs to be done as we head into 2026, and beyond.
We ask what happens after AGOA, and the impact that 72,000 tonnes of dumped US chicken will have on the local market.
We look at the economic and social costs of food insecurity and the continued and staggering rise of child stunting in South Africa.
We make a case for South Africa’s poultry industry – the largest agricultural sector in the country – which is at a pivotal crossroads.
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Chicken importers have been dealt a severe blow by the Supreme Court of Appeal, which rejected their efforts to prevent the renewal of anti-dumping duties on chicken imports from three European countries.
Chicken importers have been dealt a severe blow by the Supreme Court of Appeal, which rejected their efforts to prevent the renewal of anti-dumping duties on chicken imports from three European countries.
The Association of Meat Importers and Exporters (AMIE) had objected to the five-year renewal in 2020 of anti-dumping duties against Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
They succeeded in the Gauteng high court in 2023, when the renewal was rejected because the court found that the decision of the Minister of Finance to approve continued anti-dumping duties was flawed. The duties remained in place while that decision was appealed.
The high court ruling has been overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeal, which found that the ministerial decision was valid and should remain in force.
The Supreme Court of Appeal ordered AMIE to pay the costs of the legal counsel representing the three appellants – the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC), the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, and the SA Poultry Association (SAPA).
The appeal court also rejected AMIE’s reasoning that ITAC should have verified the information presented to it before starting the renewal process, known as a sunset review, for the continuation of anti-dumping duties.
The court pointed out that detailed verification was required in an original application for duties, but that World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules set less onerous requirements for a sunset review. ITAC’s decision to initiate the review was therefore not misleading, as AMIE had contended.
In addition, the court found that AMIE had failed to provide an acceptable explanation of why it took 28 months, instead of the prescribed 180 days, to lodge a legal challenge to ITAC’s sunset review.
This is only one of the anti-dumping decisions that AMIE is challenging. It is contesting the renewal of anti-dumping duties on chicken imports from the United States, which have been in place since 2000, as well as the new anti-dumping duties imposed on Brazil and four European Union countries.
Whether the Supreme Court of Appeal judgment will affect those court cases remains to be seen.
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Praise for the G20 outcomes, and a note of caution, came from Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) CEO Busi Mavuso.
Praise for the G20 outcomes, and a note of caution, came from Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) CEO Busi Mavuso.
In her newsletter, reported by Engineering News, she said the G20 Leaders Declaration was “a powerful document that sets out a vision and set of actions that tackle several global challenges”. It contained much that would put African development on a strong footing.
“There is strong commitment to energy and food security for Africa, as well as industrialisation, trade and investment. Importantly, there are legacy initiatives that will aim to deliver on the commitments and intentions outlined in the declaration,” she said.
The finance track of the G20 aimed to coordinate action across the world’s major economies to support Africa’s development and integration into the global financial system. This framework would coordinate economic policies, and support financial stability, tax cooperation, infrastructure financing and debt sustainability.
“I want to see this accelerate the development of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, which promises to unlock trillions in economic activity across the continent.”
The caution was that South Africa had to uphold the rule of law and act against crime. This was essential for investor confidence.
“The positive sentiment we’ve generated through our hosting of the G20 and our credit rating upgrade will only translate into sustained investment if we strengthen the fundamentals that investors scrutinise. Chief among these is the rule of law and the integrity of our criminal justice system,” Mavuso stated.
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