EPA Monitoring is a web-based platform supported by ACTAllianceEU, a pan-European NGO of over 100 European faith based organizations. Earlier this year EPA Monitoring reported extensively on the impact of the EU’s predatory poultry trade practices and highlighted the need to “mobilize public opinion in Europe to regulate the EU’s developmentally disruptive poultry trade practices”
Following are key excerpts from the EPA Monitoring report:
The issue of the impact of EU sales of poultry parts at prices which in no way reflect EU poultry production costs is a common problem across Africa
Poultry producers and trade unions in South Africa and Ghana have joined the FairPlay anti dumping movement in opposing dumping of EU poultry parts on African markets.
In West Africa, the EU poultry trade is seen as fuelling migration pressures. Speaking before the UN General Assembly Ghana’s President made an explicit link between expanding EU sales of poultry parts and migration, arguing ‘Ghanaians who embark on the risky journey to Europe are poultry farmers or entrepreneurs who “sell their shops and undertake the journey because they can no longer compete with the tonnes of frozen chicken dumped on African markets annually”
Given the scale of EU exports to 38 subSaharan African countries, this is a panAfrican issue.
Pressures on EU exporters to find new markets beyond the EU’s borders will increase in the coming years driven by expanding EU production, accelerating export growth and possible Brexit related trade disruptions.
This is not just an issue for Ghana and South Africa. The FairPlay Movement has noted how Senegal and Cameroon have at various times faced similar challenges from the ‘dumping’ of EU poultry parts. It is maintained that in Senegal 70% of broiler operations have closed as a result of EU ‘dumping’, while at one time prior to the introduction of quantitative restrictions EU dumping practices had resulted in the loss of 120 000 jobs in Cameroon
Without concerted African action which mobilizes public opinion in Europe to regulate the EU’s developmentally disruptive poultry trade practices, sub Saharan African poultry and poultry feed producers are likely to face a grim future, with growing African consumer demand for poultry meat increasingly being met from imports rather than expanding domestic African poultry production.
This would be unfortunate given the strong backward linkages African poultry producers can develop to domestic grain and oilseed producers. These linkages can generate transformative income earning opportunities in rural areas, with the loss of these linkages being a major developmental concern.
From: EPA Monitoring
