Pretoria - Persistent load shedding has greatly reduced the accessibility and availability of chicken.
This is the view of consumers, farmers and small business owners, who said load shedding had made chicken more expensive.
Consumers said they were frustrated by the increasing price of eggs and chicken, which were expected to go up further by R3.50 soon.
As this happens, chicken becomes more expensive at all outlets, including restaurants and fast food outlets.
Farmer Josi Paulo, of Top Tech Growers in Pretoria, said he nearly lost 100 000 chickens worth R4 million when his generator failed to kick in.
He said the impact of load shedding was felt from the moment a chicken was still an egg until it hatched, became a chick, and later a chicken.
“The process requires energy from electricity because farms use a lot of technology to keep the chickens alive,” Paulo said.
Even the eggs had to be kept well and processed through technology that uses energy, he said.
“The process of making and packaging chicken requires the use of energy before they can be transported to other businesses and the end user – the consumer,” Paulo said.
Abattoirs needed energy to perform efficiently and effectively, the farmer added.
He said when a government failed to provide these economies with consistent electricity, production processes became more expensive, and this translated to the increased price of chicken.
“Later, ordinary people fail to afford chicken. Businesses cut down staff and unemployment rises, leading to public protests.
“Two weeks ago, I nearly lost 100 000 chickens worth about R4m because my generator died. You only get a window of between 30 and 90 minutes to react quickly or the chickens die. Luckily I was able to borrow a generator from a neighbouring farmer. I have since bought a back-up generator to back up the generator that was the back-up when there is power failure.
“This load shedding is really bad, and our government needs to stop trying to fool us and end this problem because we know they have the capacity, but something else is going on with these people. When there was Stage 3 load shedding, I spent R40 000 in back-up generator fuel costs. Stage 6 costs R90 000. This is too much.”
Paulo said farmers used to work 400 extra hours to try to manage things such as irrigation, but now worked 600 extra hours because load shedding made things worse. He said farmers today had to wake up in the middle of the night and leave their families to ensure load shedding did not cause failure that could harm their produce.
Residents Tumelo Riba and Ike Lekwaba said chicken was the cheapest option of meat for ordinary South Africans, but now they were struggling to afford it as well.
Pretoria News