Image courtesy of Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Last year, about 60 percent of all chickens imported to South Africa came from Brazil, the world's largest poultry exporter.
BBC reported that chicken farming has long been one of South Africa's most successful businesses, as more than 1 billion birds are consumed annually in the country, more than double the amount of beef. South Africa's poultry industry provides jobs for more than 48,000 people, and nearly 60,000 jobs indirectly. But industry specialists worry that jobs could disappear in the coming months due to the influx of Brazilian birds: local chicken farmers' share of the domestic market has been dramatically cut while Brazil's chicken exports surged 40 percent in just one year.
Jobs are an extremely sensitive matter in South Africa, where at least one-fourth of the labor force is unemployed, IBTimes says. "We cannot afford to have chicken dumped in South Africa. Our people are losing jobs, our companies are losing profits. It will impact negatively on the country's economy," Tumi Mokwene, a small poultry farmer, told BBC.
Read the full article on www.ibtimes.com.
