Panellists on the FairPlay webinar on trade negotiations agreed that, when the poultry industry’s future was at stake, the poultry industry should be at the table.
United States officials demanding concessions from South Africa for a potential trade deal have focused on the poultry industry. The government has already offered an annual quota of US chicken imports free of anti-dumping duties, and the US is pushing for additional concessions on general tariffs applied to US chicken.
Agricultural economist Thabile Nkunjana, from the National Agricultural Marketing Council, said it was important that government negotiators understood the issues, and that key stakeholders were on board with what was being offered.
He noted that, in government discussions on chicken export products and destinations, the poultry industry was not represented.
This was supported by Ayanda Ngxumeshe, a lecturer in agricultural economics at the Tshwane University of Technology. The government should not make trade decisions without consulting the industry affected by those decisions, she said.
Raise the issues in parliament and make sure that political leaders understand, was the advice from Matshidiso Lencoasa, a budget policy analyst from human rights organisation Section27.
“Taking the fight to parliament and engaging with decision makers is really important”, she said.
Nkunjana warned that government decisions are being made without industry insight: “The industry knows what it faces; government doesn’t,” he said. Ngxumeshe urged a science-based approach to both trade and animal health, while Lencoasa stressed that dumping hurts smallholders and poor consumers the most.
FairPlay founder Francois Baird, who moderated the discussion, noted that trade negotiations were taking place in secret, with neither the public nor the industries involved having access to details, or input into the discussions.
“Let’s see if we can get the government to be less secretive, more responsive and more willing to listen to others,” he concluded.
