By Boaz Blackie Keizire and Stella
Massawe
Southern Africa poultry initiative promises jobs, economic growth
Africa’s livestock sector stands at a pivotal crossroads. With rising demand for affordable protein, growing youth unemployment, and persistent trade imbalances, the Southern Africa Poultry Initiative (SAPI) emerges as a bold, strategic response to these intertwined challenges.
Anchored by the Southern Africa Confederation of Cooperative Unions (SACAU), and coordinated by AGRA, SAPI is a bold initiative designed to catalyse inclusive growth, regional collaboration, and sustainable transformation across the poultry value chain in the Southern Africa Development Cooperation (SADC) region.
It seeks to achieve the following specific objectives: improved livelihoods and job opportunities, especially for women and next-gen farmers; inclusive economic growth through increased poultry value chain competitiveness (inputs, production, processing, distribution and retail); and improved nutrition and health due to increased consumption of sustainable poultry products. Africa is faced with a poultry paradox of high demand and high imports, even as poultry can be found in 50- 80 percent of rural households.
For example, despite poultry being the most affordable source of animal protein in Southern Africa, the region continues to import hundreds of thousands of tons of chicken meat annually. South Africa alone imported over 300,000 tons in 2024, even as domestic production rose to 1.59 million tons.
This import bill not only drains foreign exchange but also compromises local job creation and stifles upstream industries such as maize and soya farming—critical components of poultry feed.
Feed costs account for up to 70 percent of poultry production expenses. Yet, fragmented value chains, poor coordination, and underinvestment in maize and soya production have left many countries vulnerable to price shocks and supply disruptions.
As Vice President of AGRA Jonathan Said aptly noted, “Poultry must be viewed as a downstream product of soybean and maize value chains—not as standalone.” The post-production markets from poultry can also have a significant number of uses in terms of meat, eggs, processed food products, and non-food by-products such as manure/fertiliser, feathers/down, and animal feed.
The livestock sector, specifically poultry, is critical in advancing the economies of Africa, enhancing nutritional security and creating employment to youth. This is why SAPI is potentially positioned to transform the poultry industry into a growth engine of the region and continent. As an example, this initiative has an ambition to build a productive, inclusive, and competitive poultry sector that delivers social, nutritional, economic, and environmental outcomes.
The five-strategic pillars are ambitious to drive the industry. The first pillar is the sustainable poultry feed accelerator, which aims at tackling feed cost challenges through innovation, improved grain production, and novel feed blends.
The second pillar is in[1]country poultry sector development that aims to bolster the national poultry sector starting with an initial cohort of four countries (Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia).
AGRA and partners have recently been supporting these countries to organise national poultry delivery labs, bringing together key poultry sector stakeholders from the private sector, government, financial institutions, farmer associations, development partners, and technical institutions to align on a bold vision and country specific practical action plan over the next 5–10 years.
The other critical pillars of SAPI are intra-regional collaboration in biosecurity, risk mitigation and trade, regional poultry data hub and financing.
The initiative has also brought in a regional collaboration element through forums like the Regional Poultry Futures Forum (PFF) and the SADC Poultry Liaison Forum. PFF aims to unlock the poultry industry’s potential as a critical driver of food security, economic development, and employment in the region by fostering collaboration and innovation to overcome sector challenges and enhance food security. The SADC Poultry Liaison Forum is harmonising tariffs, addressing non-tariff barriers, and improving biosecurity across borders. More critical, poultry is an entry point for the youth and gender jobs solution. By linking poultry to feed production, the effort has the potential to unlock opportunities for young agripreneurs and women in maize and soya farming, feed processing, and poultry distribution.
Building on more than two years of multistakeholder efforts under the Food Action Alliance, AGRA is working with partners to strategically mobilise investments for this agenda and has already attracted co-investments from partners like AECF, Cargill, GAIN, the Southern Africa Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU), Technoserve, and the World Economic Forum to strategically mobilise investments for this agenda. SAPI is more than a sectoral intervention; it is a continental opportunity. By transforming poultry into a driver of inclusive growth, initiatives like these can unlock thousands of jobs, reduce import dependency, and strengthen Africa’s food sovereignty. For young people across the region, it offers not just employment, but a pathway to prosperity.
Boaz Blackie Keizire is Director – Policy & State Capability at AGRA. Stella Massawe is a Senior Specialist for Policy and State Capacity at AGRA