The South African poultry industry – the second-largest agricultural sub-sector contributing to the economy – has grown to be a R59 billion industry over the last three years, thanks mainly to additional investments made by the industry’s participants. At a State of the Poultry Industry Roundtable on Wednesday, the South African Poultry Association revealed that the industry invested R1.
This has caused a backlog, which results in birds growing older in broilers, meaning that farmers need to spend more than they budgeted on feed. To cut down on this backlog, Breitenbach says farmers have had to stall egg hatchings, but this impacts negatively on product output. “That reduced production. The value of the reduced production was 13 million birds during December and January.