The International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (Itac) has published a notice in the Government Gazette about the initiation of a sunset review of the antidumping duties on imports of frozen bone-in portions of fowls of the species Gallus Domesticus originating in or imported from the US. Public comment on the notice will be received until December 9.

There are three interesting things about the notice. First, it was published on a Wednesday (November 9) instead of the customary Friday. Second, it references ‘domestic chicken’ or simply ‘chicken’. Nothing of significance there, you may argue. What is significant, however, is that 8 265 days ago, on March 24, 2000, the Board on Tariffs and Trade (BTT) – remember it? – initiated the very first investigation into the alleged dumping of chicken meat originating in or imported from the US. The third thing is that this is the fourth five-year sunset review, making this the ‘coming of age’ of this antidumping duty.

Somehow, I don’t think the US is in a celebratory mood, as its opposition to, as well as disgust at, the imposition of antidumping duties by Itac is well documented.

Then there is the matter of August 1, a Monday, when Itac released an inconspicuous Government Gazette titled ‘Notice of conclusion of an investigation into the alleged dumping of frozen bone-in portions of fowls of the species Gallus Domesticus originating in or imported from Brazil, Denmark, Ireland, Poland and Spain’. For a quick recap, refer to the instalment of this column published on August 19 and titled ‘Chickenomics’. If you want a quick reminder, the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition decided to suspend the antidumping duties on the five countries for a period of 12 months “in an effort to reduce food inflation”. Is one then to infer that the retention of the antidumping duties on the US chicken is non-inflationary?

If you want to know about the origins of this sorry saga – which some might say has ruffled, and continues to ruffle, feathers – please look for an article titled ‘SA fights chicken dumping’, which was published in Engineering News on March 24, 2000. It all started with an application brought by Rainbow Farms, better known as Rainbow Chicken, and now known as RCL Foods Consumer Proprietary Limited, on behalf of the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) industry and supported by the South African Poultry Association (Sapa). Rainbow Farms asserted that “it was unable to compete with the low prices charged by the importers, and that the dumped poultry products are causing material injury to the local operation”.

At the time, the concept of ‘white meat’ and ‘brown meat’ was introduced. In essence, US consumers are only interested in breast meat, or ‘white meat’, while the remainder of the carcass, the ‘brown meat’, is exported. As a consequence, there are no US domestic sales of ‘brown meat’, but at the time the BTT calculated a per-kilogram cost, per carcass, which inflated the ‘brown meat’ prices, resulting in massive antidumping duties being imposed.

So, around rolls November 9. In a television saga, they would have said “the names have been changed . . .” – only in this instance the lead has changed and a cast of many has been assembled. For no longer is RCL Foods leading; it is now a supporting member, with Sapa leading, having lodged the a pplication on behalf of the Sacu industry using information provided by the Sacu producers: Astral County Fair, Astral Festive, Astral Goldi, Daybreak, Grain Field, Sovereign Foods, and Supreme.

The involvement of Supreme is reminiscent Diana Ross and the Supremes, whose song, I Will Survive, opens with these lyrics: “At first I was afraid, I was petrified, Kept thinking I could never live without . . .”