An energy crisis is seeping into South Africa’s food supply

The most severe power cuts ever experienced in South Africa are threatening food and water supplies and disrupting the lives of millions of people, including chicken farmers. In the poultry industry, electricity outages have forced factories to pause round-the-clock operations for as long as half a day at a time. As a result, over ten-million birds designated for slaughter are still alive and consuming feed, creating a backlog that companies fear they won’t be able to fix.