High tariffs: When chicken costs more, children pay the price

One in four South African children is stunted from hunger. Yet chicken, a basic protein, is taxed up to 62%. Merlog Foods manager, Georg Southey, wants to know why South Africa is making food less affordable.

Two nationally representative surveys of the country’s diets conducted just over a decade apart reveal a deeply troubling figure: during their most critical years of growth, a quarter of young children in South Africa are stunted or malnourished.

Put simply, one in four of our nation’s children will suffer developmental delays, primarily due to hunger. Why then, is a basic foodstuff, such as imported chicken from countries including Brazil, Canada and Thailand, taxed by as much as 62%?

The South African National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, conducted in 2011/2012 by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), was a nationally representative study to examine nutrition trends. It found that just more than a quarter of children aged three and under were so malnourished they were stunted.

Just over a decade later, a second in-depth national study by the HSRC, commissioned by the department of agriculture and released late last year, produced similar data showing that 28.8% of children between the ages of 0 to 5 were stunted, with the study report noting that hunger and stunting have increased slightly over the past decade.

The 2024 survey titled National Food and Nutrition Security Survey also found that two-thirds of households experienced some hunger, meaning only a third are fully food secure.

This data shows South Africa is making no progress in the fight against hunger and is condemning yet another generation of children to permanent damage. “Hidden hunger” from inadequate and nutrient-poor diets was also highlighted in the recent study.

Importer urges flexible chicken deal with Brazil

Protein should not be a luxury

It is against this backdrop that Merlog Foods, a protein importer and meat distributor to large retailers, welcomes the fact that the department of agriculture has allowed Brazilian mechanically deboned meat (MDM), a key ingredient in polony and viennas, back into South Africa from 8 July after a ban following a single commercial farm in Brazil recording a bird flu outbreak.

Instead of adopting the World Organisation for Animal Health’s global approach of regionalisation, accepting imports from unaffected states and regions, South Africa implemented a blanket ban on Brazilian chicken and MDM in mid-May.

Brazil produces 95% of MDM used locally to manufacture essential, affordable processed meat, and this input spiked 140% in price in June.

This means polony and vienna prices will rise, leaving even more South Africans and children without protein.

Even after Brazil declared itself completely free of bird flu in June, South Africa tried to implement an outdated historic six-month waiting period rather than the currently globally accepted 28 days of being bird flu free, something authorities fixed from 8 July when an agreement was made that trade would be allowed to resume after a more than seven-week delay. Processed meat prices are expected to take a while to stabilise.

It is, however, essential to have affordable protein for South Africa’s children and vulnerable households as soon as possible.

Children’s nutrition is not only crucial for their own survival and intellectual development, but for our country’s long-term educational and economic future.

Failing to nourish children today is a choice to weaken tomorrow’s workforce and burden our health and welfare systems.

Protein, therefore, should not be a luxury. Yet the local poultry industry, with far louder voices than hungry children, has successfully demanded protectionist policies to preserve their farms at the expense of meat affordability.

No measurable export progress made

The Poultry Master Plan, a social compact between the government, business and industry implemented in 2019, was meant to support local production and increase job creation. However, it has failed.

The plan introduced punitive tariffs on importers, supposedly to give the local sector space to recover and grow. A year after the plan was implemented in 2019, import duties on bone-in chicken rose from 37% to 62%, and duties on offal, a highly nutritious foodstuff, rose from 12% to 30%, while boneless chicken import duties rose from 12% to 42%.

Merlog Foods urgently recommends that these increases in import duties be reversed in order to foster competition and lower food costs.

These protectionist measures, aimed, according to the Master Plan, to raise poultry exports from under 2% of production to 3–5% by 2023, and to 7–10% by 2028, with further growth thereafter.

However, more than five years later, no measurable export progress has been made by the local poultry industry.

The plan also concedes that since 2008, growth in domestic poultry consumption has slowed. This is unsurprising as protectionist duties make chicken unaffordable for many.

Due to chicken being so important as a basic foodstuff for vulnerable households, it was also included in the expanded list of items that would not be charged VAT, a move intended to shield the hungry from the rampant inflation of basic foodstuffs.

Unfortunately, this VAT-free proposal was excluded from the final 2025 budget.

South African plates without meat

It is time to stop taxing hunger.

In his February State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared: “We want a nation where no one goes hungry.” Well, Mr President, why then is chicken made up to two-thirds more expensive by punitive tariffs?

Let affordable protein into the country, for the benefit of those who need it most. Reducing tariffs on imported chicken could bring meat back to the plates of millions who currently go without.

South Africa’s tax on cheap protein comes with a devastating price. And it’s the nation’s children, silenced by hunger, who are paying it.

Georg Southey is the manager at Merlog Foods, one of South Africa’s largest importers of chicken and chilled meats and a supplier of local and foreign protein to major retailers. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Food For Mzansi.