Supply and demand will determine the prices of eggs throughout 2025.
South Africans saw egg prices skyrocket in 2023 due to the avian influenza outbreak. Months later, farmers are still trying to mitigate the outbreak’s impact on egg production.
The South African Poultry Association (Sapa) has cautioned the industry of the possibility of another outbreak, as Europe’s avian flu season has started early and is spreading aggressively.
According to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), also known as bird flu, is a contagious viral disease that affects both domestic and wild birds.
“Where outbreaks occur in domestic birds, it is often the policy to cull all poultry, whether infected or healthy, to contain the spread of avian influenza. This represents heavy economic losses for farmers and a long-lasting impact on their livelihoods.”
Loss of national egg production
Dr Abongile Balarane, CEO of the Sapa Egg division, told The Citizen that the previous avian influenza outbreak in 2023 caused the loss of about 30% of the national egg production.
“To rebuild this lost production, we needed about 17 months. We are still rebuilding, and I believe we should be back to our normal 27-million-layer chickens from the second half of 2025, with hopes there will not be any avian influenza.”
He added that the industry was down to 19 million layer hens in early 2024 and is currently at 23 million.
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Supply and demand of eggs
Balarane added that supply and demand will determine the prices of eggs throughout 2025.
“We are still tight on the supply side, and many affected farmers are struggling to restock their farms due to financial constraints.”
Sapa CEO, Izaak Breitenbach said another bird flu outbreak would be catastrophic, impacting food security and poultry prices.
“The industry averted food shortages and price increases by importing more than 285m hatching eggs to replenish the eggs lost during the outbreak.”
He added that broiler meat prices spiked between November and December 2023 but have markedly reduced as production levels normalised.
Outbreaks in other parts of the world
The Association said that following the early start of the avian flu in Europe, three more US States have been shut down due to the virus in the last month.
Therefore, they have cautioned South Africa to prioritise vaccination to mitigate similar outbreaks, as the standard biosecurity protocols, stringent as these may be, are not sufficient to curb an outbreak.
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Vaccination protocols
Balarane said they have a vaccination protocol published by the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) in November 2023.
In addition, three of the H5 vaccines are registered for use in South Africa, while the H7 vaccines are still under the registration process.
“With the currently approved vaccination protocols, certain sections of these protocols are difficult for the producers to implement, including the costs related to the implementation.”
Talks with government
He added that the Association has been negotiating and discussing the protocols with DALRRD since the second half of 2023.
“We meet twice almost every month to amend sections of the protocols that need attention. More progress has been made on this matter, and both parties will continue the negotiations in 2025 to finalise the matter.”
Balarane added that the only way to speed up the process is for the Industry and Government to finalise negotiations on protocols and vaccine registration and further approve applications from qualifying farms.
“Regrettably, we are very close to our avian influenza season and with concerns about the rise of cases overseas.
“We are not relaxed about the possibility of going through another avian influenza without some level of protection from the vaccines unfortunately, we will suffer badly.”
Breitenbach said they have called on DALRRD Minister John Steenhuisen to intervene in the process and allow producers to vaccinate.
“The industry can ill afford to repeat the disastrous consequences of what happened in 2023.”
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