By 2035, South Africa’s poultry industry could look radically different, depending on whether policymakers choose to create, or continue allowing things to stagnate. The divergence between these futures is not theoretical; it can be measured in jobs created or lost, tonnes of food produced or imported, and children nourished or stunted.
The sector’s fate will hinge on decisions made in the next few years: how the state enforces trade protections, compensates farmers for bird flu losses, handles infrastructure investment, and interprets the Competition Commission’s inquiry into market structure. Together, these choices will determine whether South Africa’s poultry industry becomes a driver of national growth or a casualty of policy drift.
Scenario A: The Path of Creation
In this scenario, government policy aligns consistently with the 2019 Poultry Sector Master Plan, and stays there. The 72,000-tonne U.S. quota expires with AGOA and is not renewed as a trade concession to the US. Brazil and others face duties when they dump product below cost. Infrastructure investment continues, bird flu culling is compensated, and vaccination protocols are funded and practical.
Under these conditions, the sector finally fulfills its potential. Weekly slaughter rises from 21.5 million birds today to well over 22.5 million, growing further as new investments flow in. Projected production climbs from 1.59 million tonnes (2024) to 1.9 million by 2030 and potentially 2.2 million tonnes by 2035; a 30%+ increase in output.
Employment continues to expand correspondingly; for every one job created in the poultry industry, another is created throughout the value-chain, which currently supports around 134,000 jobs. If the growth trend continues by 2035, total employment could exceed 175,000 throughout the value-chain,providing scarce work in rural areas where youth unemployment (exceeding 60%) is of particular concern.
The industry’s economic contribution would surge, from R72 billion today to a projected R100 billion by 2035, while feed consumption rises in tandem (sustaining local maize farmers whose livelihoods depend on stable demand). Exports hasten; with better cold-chain infrastructure and adherence to export standards, poultry exports to SADC could double as the region is already reliant on South African poultry. Halal-certified production could also capture growing markets in the Middle East and the UK, which reopened to South African chicken in 2024.
And perhaps most importantly, protein affordability improves. As production expands and competition strengthens, prices stabilise and decline in real terms. School feeding schemes gain access to reliable, affordable protein. Malnutrition rates begin to fall.
This is a future where trade policy, industrial investment, and social impact converge.
Scenario B: (Continuing down) The Path of Stagnation
In this version of 2035, policy contradictions persist and drift replaces direction. The U.S. quota of dumped chicken remains in place indefinitely, more likely, it will expand along with imports. Additional trade concessions erode local competitiveness. The Competition Commission, misreading integration as monopoly, recommends structural fragmentation that raises costs rather than reducing them, destroying thousands of livelihoods in the process. Bird flu outbreaks go uncompensated, and infrastructure decay continues.
Producers respond rationally to irrational policy: they retreat. Weekly slaughter capacity falls from 21.5 million birds to historic levels below 20 million. Total production drops. Direct employment declines dramatically, reverberating through the value-chain which sheds a job for every job lost in the poultry industry.
GDP contribution contracts from R72 billion to historical levels (<R50 billion), while local grain farmers lose stable feed demand. Export dreams vanish entirely; Brazil and other global players fill regional demand on their current path to global domination.
Worse still, transformation stalls. Without growth, small black producers who entered under the Master Plan face mounting debt, idle infrastructure, and vanishing markets. Import dependence deepens.
The human toll is sobering. As imports dominate and local supply contracts, retail chicken prices rise. School feeding budgets stretch thinner, and
child malnutrition (already affecting 28.8% of children under five) worsens dramatically. The erosion of policy consistency becomes visible in the bodies of hungry children.
With the FairPlay Movement approaching its tenth anniversary in 2026, it can bear both witness and warning: Since 2016, FairPlay has fought dumping, challenged damaging trade concessions, defended South African producers and workers against unfair competition. The results prove that policy enforcement works: imports of bone-in chicken portions have dropped by 83% since 2019. Yet new headwinds threaten those gains. Trade deals negotiated
in secrecy, avian flu outbreaks without compensation, and a regulatory inquiry that questions the structure sustaining local production all risk unravelling half a decade of progress under the Poultry Master Plan.
The next ten years will determine whether South Africa’s poultry sector fulfills its potential as a strategic R72-billion national asset, or whether it succumbs to the slow corrosion of neglect. The cost of indecision will not be borne by balance sheets alone, it will be carried in the malnutrition statistics of the next generation.
