Meat processors deny importing dressed chicken

Oct 22, 2012

Local meat processors have vehemently refuted allegations that they are involved in importing dressed chicken, a case that had created a rift between them and poultry farmers.

By David Ssempijja

Local meat processors have vehemently refuted allegations that they are involved in importing dressed chicken, a case that had created a rift between them and poultry farmers.

While delivering this year’s national budget speech, President Yoweri Museveni lashed out at government officials for licensing the importation of whole dressed chicken (carcasses) into the country, pessimistic that it would continue creating unfair competition to the local poultry farmers.

The president was responding to the petition that had earlier been forwarded to his office by the Poultry Farmers, Dressed Chicken Processors and Suppliers Association with claims that the companies were involved in importing dressed chicken.

Through the petition to the president, the chicken farmers association chairman Dr. Ochola Godfrey, said that it was necessary to restrict the importation of dressed chicken for its continuity would escalate poverty because farmers will continue losing markets.

However, during a recent meeting with the Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, the processors pointed out that the farmers’ association never verified the type of chicken meat imported, thus they premised their arguments on wrong grounds

Speaking to New Vision, Stephan Duyck, the managing director for Fresh Cuts explained that the firm only imports raw materials from Europe and Brazil in form of Mechanically Deboned Chicken Meat (MDCM), a product obtained by hi-tech methods of crushing tissues after removing the Fresh Chicken Breast Meat (FCBM) parts.

Companies were authorised by the ministry of agriculture to import MDCM but restricts dressed chicken, a case that was confirmed by Richard Kamajugo, the Commissioner Customs Uganda Revenue Authority.

“We are very keen, we cannot allow restricted meat and its products into Uganda, the type of meat we allow here must be in the bracket of the agriculture ministry guidelines,” he said in an interview.

MDCM is solely used to make chicken sausages, Chicken Ham and Chicken Roast. In addition to its nutritional values, products made from MDCM are tastier, yet too cheap to import, just at $1 (sh2480) per kilogram, making the final products affordable too.

“But  products made out of MDCM are not the only ones we produce, we also cut and pack chicken pieces from birds we buy from local poultry farmers, processing between 1500 and 2000 birds a day, at times, we don’t even get our target quantities because of constrained supplies from the local farmers,” Duyck said.

Hussein Jivraj, another large scale producer of processed meat and the proprietor of Ranchers does not import, he says his company buys most of the chicken from Bright Chicks, a local supplier.

Farmers’ Choice managing director, Sam Patel says that his company imports some chicken parts only when local dealers cannot consistently supply the company with the enough quantities, arguing that his processing plant would be operating under-capacity in case of limited supply.

Duyck further lamented that his firm lost the Southern Sudan market recently because the firm had failed to meet the customers’ target in terms of quantity at delivery time, thus it was impossible competing with chicken dealers from Brazil who get enough quantities from farmers at cheaper prices ($2 per kilo) than those of Uganda ( $3 per kilo).

The Uganda National Bureau of standards acting chief executive, Ben Manyindo pointed out in media reports that the quality of birds on the market is also questionable, this he, said could render Uganda uncompetitive as the country embraces a free market economy which allows in products from other countries.

The local poultry industry is also faced with challenges associated with poor quality birds that take long to nature, yet feeds are very expensive, making birds costly.

Locally, it takes eight weeks to grow a bird weighing 1.5 kilograms as opposed to the four weeks it should take to accumulate the same weight.

However, Sam Magala, an expert on poverty alleviation pointed out that much as chicken farmers want protection, the step should ensure that the prices of local chicken does not become unaffordable because of lack of competition.

 “We have to look at this in the bigger picture, much as  farmers want to be protected against imports, there are other citizens in other businesses interested in products that are affordable, we need a balance, if the common man doesn’t afford a locally made products, it is rational getting the imported cheaper ones,” he said.


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