When the FairPlay Movement first started challenging chicken dumping in South Africa a decade ago, the big dog of the importers howled “protection” — and all his pack brayed along.Since then, nine countries have been found guilty of dumping chicken in South Africa, and the government and the industry, including the Association of Meat Importers & Exporters (AMIE), have signed up to a chicken master plan to grow poultry production. Now South Africa has the world’s second most competitive poultry industry, yet here is the old dog back at his old tricks, howling “protection” again from retirement in Australia. (“Is poultry protection now costing consumers?” August 25).Removing tariffs will not make chicken cheaper. Imported chicken sells at, or just below, the local price, and not at its landed cost, because the importers use the local price as their reference price. Importers buy low, sell high and pocket fat profits by driving South African producers out of business. We know this because provisional antidumping duties lapsed in June 2022. Over the eight months that followed, Stats SA data show frozen portion prices 6.3% higher than before the duties applied. The final duties were suspended for a year from August 2022, with a similar result. This is called predatory trade for a good reason. The reference price is the South African cost of production. Only by lowering the South African cost of production will chicken get cheaper for our consumers. Cost declines with industry growth and scale. The master plan seeks increasing price competitiveness through economies of scale and new capacity. Predatory imports inhibit growth. All countries use tariffs to create a level, competitive playing field. Antidumping duties are levelled when the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (Itac), an independent statutory body, finds dumping in an industry, and it recommends appropriate deterrent duties to government. None of this should be news to David Wolpert and his pack of importers. The purpose of the Poultry Master Plan is to encourage a resilient, competitive poultry sector that can supply the domestic market while developing its export potential and creating opportunities throughout the agricultural value chain. Despite challenges such as unreliable, expensive electricity and water, tattered transport infrastructure, the R9bn blow from bird-flu culling — for which the South African government still refuses to compensate chicken farmers despite its own policy requiring it to do so — and the disruption caused by Covid, South Africa’s poultry farmers excelled. They ensured a constant supply of the world’s second-most affordable chicken to South Africans.Poultry farmers are the biggest users of South African grain and soya, employing about 110,000 people, mostly in rural areas. Poultry anchors South Africa’s largest agricultural value chain. Gross production value approached R88bn in 2024 on the government’s figures, 19.1% of agricultural gross value and 44.4% of animal products. Broilers take 43% of the maize that goes to animal feed and most of the soya. Feed is about 70% of the cost of raising a bird. Instead of growing poultry exports to lower the cost of chicken for all South Africans, as it undertook to do in the master plan, the AMIE has done nothing. And here it is again, after a decade of idleness, braying protection instead of exporting South African chicken. The quickest way to cut the price of chicken for low-income consumers would be to scrap the 15% VAT on chicken. Remove the tax and the price falls immediately. This proposal has been put to the Treasury, and FairPlay has been campaigning for it since 2018. A submission was lodged again in 2024, prepared by ENS for the South African Poultry Association and AMIE jointly. Producers and importers already support VAT-free chicken. Cheaper chicken means more volume, more production and more jobs, feed, processing and distribution. Phase 2 of the master plan seeks increased affordability for low-income households. Zero-rating will deliver it tomorrow if implemented. The international trading environment makes this ambition more important than before. The US levies an arbitrary 12.5% on exported goods to the US from South Africa. In return, their chicken exports to South Africa can be dumped, free of antidumping duty. Concessions made in the context of America’s African Growth & Opportunity Act demonstrate the complexity of balancing international trade commitments with domestic food security, job growth, and industrial and rural development. With South Africa’s own preferential access to the US market under threat and with higher unemployment than before, the sustainability of these trade arrangements deserves careful consideration. Whatever government does, it should not pay heed to the do-nothing “exporters” who want to reap fatter profits and grow foreign jobs by persuading the SA government to allow dumping again. • Baird is the FairPlay Movement founder.Business Day