Agriculture Minister Thoko Didiza says that government may have to resort to importing eggs in the interim, in a bid to ease a shortage created by an outbreak of the avian flu.
Didiza met on Monday with the country’s poultry industry and says that the outbreak will not affect the availability of chicken meat.
Avian Flu | Impact on SA’s poultry industry: Tshepo Mongoai
Over 7.5 million chickens have reportedly been culled, in an effort to contain the outbreaks of two separate strains of avian influenza that has created the shortage of eggs.
She said that government is looking at fast tracking import permits.
“In the short term we’ve agreed that we will look at importation of table eggs but also fertilised eggs, so that it can allow us to go back into building our current stock. So, then we can have our layers for the eggs. At the moment there is no dumping of eggs, it doesn’t affect the industry that much, however, what we’re looking at is where we can get the fast tracking of the permit system, so that retailers who would like to import quickly in order to complement what they have currently, they can do so as soon as is possible.”
Poultry farmers concerned that avian flu outbreak will lead to business losses
