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In this week’s edition, Farmer’s Weekly looks at the viability and sustainability of a cage-free poultry system in South Africa.

A study that was conducted by the National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC), showed that such a policy would see a spike in prices and the loss of thousands of jobs. The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) started a campaign in 2019 to pressurise countries to move away from cage systems for chickens due to animal welfare concerns.

However, currently 94% of South Africa’s layer hens are being kept in cages, 5% in a cage-free system, and only 1% in a shed.

Adding to this, Ryan says that a direct investment of R4.93 billion would also be necessary to convert South Africa to a cage-free system.

Another news story focuses on the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) and its efforts to reduce the backlog in water use license applications, as well as to reduce the processing of applications from 300 days to 90 days.

In a recent statement, the department shared that a backlog of 812 water use authorisations had been finalised by 30 June this year out of a target number of 998. DWS said that the remaining water use authorisations will be finalised by the end of August.

Ryan further adds that between April 2021 and March 2022, the department finalised 613 of 971 water use applications. This, while in the first quarter of this year, which ran from April to June, 113 applications of the target of 150 were finalised. By the end of July 37 of the targeted 252 applications for the second quarter, which runs from July to September, have been finalised.

The improvement in this process has been ascribed to several interventions from the department.

The reinstatement of the provisional tariffs on imported frozen French fries also comes into the spotlight in this week’s edition of the agricultural magazine. Ryan explains that while these tariffs would not have a significant impact on South Africa’s potato industry, it was a crucial measure for protecting developing farmers.

The tariffs were reinstated after reports that were released by the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) showed frozen French fries from three European countries, namely the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium, were being dumped on the Southern African customs union markets.

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