The southern African poultry value chain: Corporate strategies, investments and agro-industrial policies

ABSTRACT

Following various regional investments in the last decade, production and participation in the poultry value chain in southern Africa has increased. One of the factors that determines entry into, and success in, a global value chain is the governance structure. This paper adopts a modular approach to analyse the governance structures in the poultry value chains in Botswana, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. A key finding is that various stakeholders have an influence on the regional poultry value chain in southern Africa, with the sources of influence depending on the formality of structures within the value chain.

KEYWORDS:

• Agro-processing
• global value chains
• governance
• poultry
• regional value chains

JEL Codes:

• Q13
• F23
• L66
• O14

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The data in this section is from the Comtrade and Trademap databases. See www.comtrade.un.org and www.trademap.org/Index respectively, Accessed 18 December 2017.

2 This section draws from Ncube et al., (2017), a forthcoming working paper stemming from the research undertaken as part of UNU Wider’s ‘Regional growth and development in Southern Africa’ research project.

3 A more elaborate discussion of the value chain is found in Ncube et al. (2016).

4 The figure was calculated by averaging the total number of live birds slaughtered from 2011 to 2015, assuming that each bird weighs approximately 1.85 kg according to SAPA (2016).

5 Interview with an industry association, July 2015.

6 Note that this is likely to be an underestimate as it is based on relatively large commercial producers and day-old chick production, while informal producers are still significant. Another source estimates production in 2014 at 142 000 tons (Agriprofocus, 2015).

7 These figures are based on estimates calculated using information from Bagopi et al. (2014), Chawafambira (2015) and ZPA (2013)

8 This figure was calculated from the 24 million birds produced in 2014, assuming that each bird weighs 1.65 kg (according to Bagopi et al. (2014)).

9 Interview with a government body, November 2015.

10 Interview with an industry association, August 2015.

11 The figure is for 2014. CBH was delisted from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2015.

12 The figure was converted from the reported revenue of US$97 046 274 on 30 June 2015, using an exchange rate of US$1 = R12.2975.

13 For the USA, anti-dumping duties exist but there is a quota which states that the first 65 000 tons of bone-in chicken meat imported per year are exempt from duties (Government of South Africa, 2016).

14 See http://www.businesslive.co.za/opinion/2016-10-23-importers-and-exporters-take-note-trade-deal-with-south-america-is-in-effect/ Accessed 20 December 2017.

15 In some cases there may be more than one type of linkage between two nodes.

Additional information

Funding

This research was financed by the United Nations University World Institute of Development Economics Research [contract number 605UU-0000000000000000000001310] titled ‘Regional growth and development in southern Africa’. This research was conducted while the author was employed at the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED), with the Zambian component of the research having been carried out by the Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute (IAPRI).