SOUTH Africans might encounter sporadic shortages of eggs on shop shelves as the poultry industry recovers from last year’s outbreak of avian influenza.
The South African Poultry Association (Sapa) says it’s aware of stock problems in some areas because the industry is still in the rebuilding phase of getting back to normal production.
The association’s Dr Abongile Balarane said 30% of the industry was destroyed in the outbreak in several provinces in 2023, but there hasn't been any avian flu this year.
“It will take us about 17 months to recover that lost production. Normally we have about 27 million chickens that give us eggs, so that has been down to about 19 million at this stage. We anticipate everything should be back to normal as early as next year, around May.”
Last year’s outbreak of bird flu resulted in egg shortages and price increases, while some shops resorted to rationing the amount of eggs customers could buy. At the time millions of chickens were culled and farmers in several provinces suffered huge losses.
However, Balarane is confident that by next May poultry farmers would have recovered and that production will then proceed as expected.
“We also lost some breeding stock. So we have to start by producing fertile eggs which will be placed in incubators. From those incubators you get your day-old chick. From that day-old chick, you have to raise it until it gets to 18 weeks. Once it's at 18 weeks to 19 weeks then it starts to give you eggs,” he said.
The good news is that come Christmas there won't be a scramble for eggs as supplies would have picked up by then. “Closer to December this year we'll start to see from that 30% (loss), maybe 20% recovered or 15% recovered. Early January maybe another 5% will come to the system,” said Balarane.
The industry would try to plug the current shortages by continuing to import liquid and powdered eggs so that all the available eggs are channelled to retailers or consumers. Balarane said the egg powder and liquid was mainly used in bakeries or for industrial purposes.
“Farmers decided not to take the existing eggs in the market and crack them to make powder and liquid. We said we'll rather import that product, the liquid and powder, and all the remaining eggs in South Africa we'll channel to your retailers where people can buy those fresh eggs. We did have some imports from Swaziland, not a huge quantity, just to close the gaps in some of the areas,” Balarane said.
The Department of Agriculture said avian influenza was a highly contagious viral disease that affected several species of food-producing birds, pet birds and wild birds. Occasionally other mammals, including humans, contracted avian influenza and surveillance operations were continuing.
“All highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) suspect farms are immediately placed under quarantine and no movement of birds, eggs or products are allowed on, off or through these farms. Samples are collected for verification of the suspicion and back and forward tracing is implemented to detect any possible spread of disease. So far most of the affected properties have culled out the chickens and carcasses were disposed of by dumping at an approved hazardous dump site, incineration, rendering or composting on farm; or on-farm burials were allowed by the Environmental Affairs Department,” it said.