BusinessLive reports that major chicken producer RCL Foods says the government’s new 13.9% safeguard duty on imported bone-in chicken portions from the EU is "hopelessly inadequate".  

RCL owns the Rainbow and Farmer Brown chicken brands.  Local chicken producers, the SA Poultry Association and labour mainly blame "dumping" of dark chicken meat products, such as legs, for the industry’s woes in struggling to sustain operations.  The Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu) has also criticised the Department of Trade and Industry over the new safeguard duty and says it is not enough to stop thousands of workers in the industry from losing their jobs.  Fawu general secretary Katishi Masemola says the government has to impose "hefty tariffs” of up to 40% on the chicken pieces at issue.  Scott Pitman of RCL says that SA is "almost unique in the world" in not protecting its domestic poultry market.

• Read this report by Mark Allix in full at BusinessLive
• See too, Poultry industry to lose 50,000 jobs, at City Press
• And also, Rainbow poultry farms close, on page 15 of The New Age of 11 January 2017

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