CAPE TOWN, June 3 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's dispute with Brazil over chicken imports worsened on Monday amid renewed calls for the South African government to intervene.

As a result of Brazilian chicken imports, thousands of jobs have been lost in the sector over the last couple of years, the South African Poultry Association (SAPA) said.

It is indeed shocking to find that 265 million chickens per year are being imported into South Africa, causing the local poultry industry to suffer as many farms had to close down as they cannot compete with cheaper imports, the association claimed.

The SAPA urged the government to act immediately against imported Brazilian chicken products.

The South African Food and Allied Workers' Union (FAWU) said on Monday that it supports the call for the government to intervene.

Protesters marched to Parliament in April to hand over a memorandum to the Department of Trade and Industry to request government intervention to place stricter import tariffs on poultry imports from Brazil to protect some 40,000 jobs in the sector.

The South African government in the past imposed some tariffs on the chicken imported from Brazil, which last year led Brazil to take legal step at the World Trade Organization to challenge South Africa's use of anti-dumping measures on shipments of Brazilian poultry meat.

The dispute is the first between Brazil and any African country and only the fourth brought against South Africa at the WTO.

The Brazilian Chicken Producers and Exporters Association said Brazilian chicken represented only 15 percent of the total chicken amount consumed in South Africa.