Egypt is Africa’s major poultry producer, with South Africa close behind in second place, according to statistics published by Mauritius-based African Exponent.
Egypt headed its list of the top 10 poultry producers in Africa in 2025. The publication put annual poultry production there at between 1.5 million and 1.8 million metric tons in 2023/2024. It said industry forecasts projected growth toward approximately 1.9 million tons by 2028.
South Africa was second, on a forecast of 1.65 million metric tons for this year by the US Department of Agriculture. This was an increase from an estimated 1.59 million tons in 2024, reflecting both recovery and growth in the domestic sector.
“Consumption within South Africa is also expected to climb, with chicken meat demand projected to reach 1.88 million tons in 2025, aided by softening poultry prices and reducing food inflation.
“Per capita poultry consumption in South Africa remains the highest on the continent, around 37 kg per person per year—a level that places it well above the African average. This strong domestic demand underpins the scale and importance of the poultry sector in the national food economy,” the publication said.
Africa’s third largest poultry producer is Morocco, with roughly 653 000 metric tons of poultry meat production in 2024.
“According to IndexBox, Egypt, South Africa, and Morocco collectively accounted for about 64% of the total poultry meat output for Africa in 2024, underscoring Morocco’s critical role.”
Nigeria was fourth, followed by Algeria, Tunisia, Kenya, Mozambique and Malawi.
Ghana was down at 10th, with production of 50.5 million tons of poultry in 2023 “only a small fraction of national consumption”. Despite multiple efforts to revive and modernise, the country’s poultry industry still faced stiff competition from cheaper frozen imports from the US, Brazil, and Europe, the publication said.
This list has two lessons for South Africa. The first is that the country would easily have been Africa’s largest poultry producer if the government had kept the promises it made in the 2019 poultry master plan.
One example is that the master plan envisaged an exports bonanza, with chicken exports doubling and trebling in a decade. However, a lack of government support – at home by the failure to invest in the veterinary facilities needed to certify exports, and abroad by a failure to pursue rigorously the opening of new markets for South African chicken – has squandered much of that opportunity.
The second lesson is the continuing devastation of Ghana’s poultry industry by cheap and dumped imports from the European Union and elsewhere. Ghana is a case study of what can happen – local production was reduced to 5% of the domestic market, facilities closed and jobs were lost. Several government schemes to put things right have not succeeded.
South Africa faces a similar fate If bird flu lessens in Europe and the United States. EU poultry comes into South Africa duty free, and US is demanding a similar arrangement. South Africa has already agreed to continue a 72 000-tonne annual US quota free of anti-dumping duties, and worse might be to come when details any trade pace are revealed.
Bird flu is keeping a flood of dumped imports at bay – for the moment. It could be a temporary respite.
