Source: Poultry production up | Sunday Mail

Sunday Mail Reporter

SMALL-SCALE poultry production has increased significantly since the beginning of the year as families turned to chicken rearing to supplement incomes during Covid-19 -induced lockdown, a Cabinet Minister has said.

“Since the advent of Covid-19, many people have been staying at home where they have taken up income-generating businesses and as a result demand for and the production of chickens has shot up,” said Dr Masuka.

“Covid-19 has induced opportunities for localisation of production and we have seen an upsurge in demand for a number of products inclusive of poultry.

“However, we need to look at the whole value chain. In this regard, we are looking at increased production of grains so that they can feed into this system.

“It is something that the Ministry is going to be working on together with Irvine’s.”

“We need to meet that market demand immediately and we are going to invest into that”.

Mr Irvine said the poultry industry was set for further growth, with rural areas now a top producer of chickens.

“There is a bright future for the poultry industry. We are providing half a million chicks a week into the kumushas (rural areas) and these people are making a living, paying school fees and buying clothes for themselves off the chicken production.

“From the kumushas they are probably producing 800 tonnes of meat from our chicks and that is very big,” he said.

The Minister toured Irvine’s staff accommodation at Derbyshire as well as the chicken and egg processing plant.

The tour was part of the Minister’s familiarisation meetings with strategic agro-industry players.