The South Africa Poultry Association Egg Organisation (SAPAO) welcomes the announcement by Minister Thoko Didiza on allowing the importation of fertile eggs for hatcheries, including products such as powder and liquid eggs.
SAPAO says under normal circumstances, the South African Egg Industry has about 27 million hens that provide us with eggs daily.
Unfortunately, about 6 million of those layer hens have been culled, with another 3 million suspected to be affected.
"As an industry, we have fully agreed to import a bulk of powder and liquid eggs, that are mainly used for industrial purposes, and then channel all the available fresh table eggs to the consumers.
"This will assist us while we are rebuilding the flock size and waiting for vaccines to be allowed in South Africa," it said
Meanwhile, the first batch of 63 million fertilised eggs ordered to mitigate the expected shortage of chicken meat in South Africa has already landed in the country.
The rest will enter our borders in different batches until February next year.
According to a report in Moneyweb, local producers are not compensated for the cost of culling their chickens. They are also losing income on future production from them.
