The focus of the South African poultry industry will have to shift from competing against chicken imports on the local market to competing for exports with other large national producers on the global market.
This is the view of Dr Tracy Davids of the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP). She said the BFAP’s latest survey of global poultry competitiveness showed that the South African industry was well positioned to compete in global markets.
Writing in the Poultry Bulletin, official journal of the SA Poultry Association (SAPA), Dr Davids said the South African industry’s competitiveness had improved steadily since 2015. It has overtaken the United States, and now ranks second only to Brazil, the world’s largest exporter. South Africa has consistently shown that it can produce a chicken cheaper than European countries do.
South African poultry production had increased by 12% over the past decade, displacing chicken imports which had declined from around 24% of local consumption in 2018 to around 16% by 2024. However, with domestic consumption growth likely to be constrained by limited consumer spending power, future production expansion would increasingly depend on exports.
An important component of future competitiveness would be feed costs, which comprised the majority of farm-level costs, she said. South Africa continued to improve in this regard, particularly through the increased production of soya beans, where the country had moved from a net importer to a net exporter. Feed competitiveness could further strengthen in the years ahead.
Brazil was a major surplus producer of most animal feed materials, hence its poultry sector benefits from low feed costs. Brazil’s competitiveness was also bolstered by the large scale of its production systems.
“Looking ahead, the South African poultry industry stands at a strategic crossroads.
“While domestic production capacity has strengthened and imports have declined, long-term growth will increasingly depend on the development of export markets, which in turn makes further improvements in competitiveness even more critical.
“Continued improvements in efficiency, a competitive feed sector and an increasingly export-led orientation will remain essential to sustain growth,” Dr Davids said.
