News

Industries

Companies

Jobs

Events

People

Video

Audio

Galleries

My Biz

Submit content

My Account

Advertise with us

News South Africa

Rainbow interdict may hurt small-scale farms

In a case that could set a precedent affecting the way government helps small farmers in the future, a small-scale Western Cape chicken farmer has been served with an interdict obtained by South Africa's largest poultry producer, Rainbow Chicken, curtailing his operations because - Rainbow claimed - it posed a "biosecurity threat" to a Rainbow coop situated nearby.

The farmer's operation produces a range of kosher and halaal slaughtered chickens, Business Report says.

Tyrone Poole, a managing member of an abattoir and poultry farm in the Hopefield area of the Western Cape, opposed these claims. His farm, he says, has been assisted with resources and finances - aiming to expand the farming operation legally - by the Western Cape Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. Department spokesman Wouter Kriel said the court verdict in the case could affect the department's ability to support small-scale poultry farmers in the future.

Stephen Heath, the corporate affairs director at Rainbow, told Business Report that Poole was alleged to be farming up to 4 000 chicks instead of the 250 stipulated in an earlier interdict. "This could endanger poultry in the area. We are willing to help [Tyrone Poole] with whatever he needs... What he is doing is illegal and we have confirmed it with the directorate of land management" Heath said.

Read the full article on www.iol.co.za.

Let's do Biz