Global Policy Forum

Subsidized Imports Ruin the Industry

By Fanny Pigeaud

"Six months from now, we think that the chicken meat business will be obliterated", declares a functionary of Mbao's National Center for Aviculture. Even with its feet tied, the chicken flaps its wings, and cackling, succeeds in ducking through the feet and legs of several passengers. Ibrahima, who's just been given the excited animal by a friend, looks around anxiously. But in the fast car that runs between the Sandiara village and the city of Mbour, in Senegal, nobody complains. Everyone is all the more tolerant as the Senegalese chicken is becoming ever more rare, specifically, ever since largely subsidized, especially European, Western imports have delivered a mortal competition.

The problem is sufficiently crucial for Senegal to ask for a modification of the WTO (World Trade Organization) rules at the next ministerial conference, taking place in Cancun (Mexico) from September 10 to 14. Even if the Senegalese authorities are aware that their opinion does not count for much at this sort of high mass.

The peasants will be there also, represented by Ndiogou Fall, President of the Network of Peasants and Producers of Western Africa, notably to ask that "exports not come to destabilize the internal markets of other countries" as African, Latin American, and European peasant organizations, which met in May to prepare the Cancun summit, have demanded.

According to the Federation of Poultry Farmers, 70 % of poultry farms in Senegal have closed during the last four years. "Even the biggest producers encounter enormous survival problems. Six months from now, we think that the poultry meat business will have been totally obliterated", asserts an official of Mbao's National Center for Aviculture.

Nevertheless, not long ago, the sector was in great shape after having radically professionalized itself, insists Abdou laye Bouna Niang, Director of Animal Husbandry in the Ministry of Agriculture. "It made an extraordinary jump between 1985 and 1995, with a development unique in the agricultural history of our country. Its gross increased tenfold!" he explains. But between 1996 and 2002, chicken imports went from 189 to 7,000 tons, while Senegalese production stagnated. "The demand for chicken grew, but that did not benefit our national poultry industry», emphasizes the Mbao's National Center for Aviculture official. Today, it's enough to taste a "yassa chicken" to recognize that the meat is not as tender as it used to be.

Gallaye Mbodji is familiar with this new low-price meat that most European consumers don't want. That's what cost him part of his financial resources. Dressed in a sky blue boubou, cell phone in hand, he's a one of the group of young peasants, ever more rare, who still resist the rural exodus. In his region, ten kilometers from Thií¨s, poultry coops allowed farmers punished by the drought to make up their income. But in 2002, they had to be abandoned. "Chicken thighs from the West started on rain down on the market, much cheaper than our products. We couldn't sell any more and we had to feed our chickens past the normal period. We lost a lot of money", recounts Gallaye.

The deluge began at the beginning of the nineties with the application of the WTO's Marrakesh agreements, signed in 1994, for the free trade of agricultural products. The rules that then went into effect stripped Senegal of the ability to control import volume. Coming mainly from the United States and Europe, assembly line chicken pieces invade his market at prices that crush any competition: either because they benefit from subsidies in their country of origin or because they're surplus there.

In 1997, the harmonization of customs duties within the Economic and Monetary Union of West Africa, of which Senegal is a member, aggravated the situation. Imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the new common external tariff was a tenth of Senegalese customs duties. From then on, the borders were wide open. "Today, in Dakar port, a kilo of imported chicken costs about 250 FCFA. Local production is at 1,200 FCFA!" challenges Abdou Diop, Head of the Senegalese department for poultry material distribution.

"We're cornered", admits Ndiobo Diene, technical counselor to the Minister of Agriculture. The loss of peasant income diminishes the country's wealth, since 70 % of the population lives from agriculture. Without the means to buy national production, the population falls back on low-cost imports, which produces a new producer shortfall. For Ndiobo Diene, only one conclusion is possible: the WTO rules must be changed.

Translation: TruthOut French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.

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