Theodore Mongwe, a Nkowankowa crop and poultry farmer who sells eggs and broiler chickens, told the Herald that her business has been affected by the bird flu outbreak as she does not have enough stock. Theodore has been avoiding stocking up on chicks because she was unsure if they could become infected. “There is a shortage of chicks at the moment and I can’t supply to all my customers. My longtime clients are disappointed because I can’t give them what they want.”
Mongwe says that feed input costs have also increased, forcing her to increase her prices as well. She will however soon produce her feed to help cut production costs. Another poultry farmer, Solomon Mathebula from Lulekani in Phalaborwa, says the government should step in and offer some form of relief to small-scale farmers to help them buy stock or feed because they are financially the hardest hit by avian influenza. “As the price of feed increases, we are forced to increase our prices, but our customers who are mostly unemployed complain when we increase our prices.
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“One live broiler chicken sells for R90, and to be honest, I’m already running at a loss because my clientele thinks I’m expensive. “For me to make a profit, I have to sell my chickens at R120 each, but in the rural areas, people can’t pay that much,” he says. “If the government could help with vouchers to buy feed to keep our businesses running it would help us a lot, however, most small-scale farmers in the rural areas have not registered businesses to access aid from government.”
According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), avian influenza is a highly contagious viral infection that affects poultry and wild birds. Currently, two different strains are causing the avian outbreak in South Africa, the A(H5N1) and the A(H7N6).
The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development states that the A (H5N1) was first reported in April this year and to date about ten poultry outbreaks occurred in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal and 39 non-poultry birds have been reported also in these areas. The A(H7N6) outbreak has been ongoing since June and fifty outbreaks have been reported in the Free State, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, North-West, and KwaZulu-Natal. At the end of September only five farms in Limpopo, in the Waterberg District, have reported outbreaks.
