The impact of bird flu on South Africa’s small-scale poultry farmers was highlighted in the investigative TV programme Carte Blanche.
The programme’s Lourensa Eckard visited the deserted poultry houses at Zapa farm outside Benoni, owned by celebrity egg producer Beverly Mhlabane.
Mhlabane has been profiled in multiple media interviews because the chemical engineer became known as the “Google egg farmer” after doing her agricultural research on the internet.
She started with a small poultry business and grew it into a much larger one. By August this year she had up to 10 000 chickens and a thriving egg business. Then bird flu came, and she had none.
Carte Blanche viewers were told that independent poultry farmers face financial ruin when bird flu strikes, because all the birds have to be culled and there is no government compensation.
“Elsewhere in the world, farmers are compensated for the birds they cull. Legally it should happen in South Africa too, but it does not.”
Mhlabane said she would need R1 million to restock her hen houses, and that was money she did not have.
“Without government compensation, there is no way I can start.”
She later said she would probably try to rebuild her business “one chicken at a time”.
A government support programme has been promised, but no details have yet been provided.
Carte Blanche also visited the Standerton operations of Astral Foods, South Africa’s largest poultry producer. Here, too, they found deserted hen houses after mandatory mass culls because bird flu had bypassed the company’s stringent biosecurity measures.
Dr Obed Lukhele, Astral’s group veterinarian, spoke of the “devastating” effect on workers of implementing a mass cull. “I do not want to do that again in my life,” he said.
The solution will be bird flu vaccines, but not immediately.
“It will take between four and six months before we have vaccines available,” said Izaak Breitenbach of the SA Poultry Association.
“Unfortunately, it will not be available for this outbreak, but it will help to prevent us getting into the same situation we are now in.”
Image: Beverly Mhlabane, owner of Zapa farm, in 2022 before bird flu wiped out her flock.
