Agri Hour
Small broiler farmers to benefit from NW poultry abattoir─── ELSABÉ RICHARD 05:00 Mon, 26 Jul 2021
Small scale poultry farmers in the North West, especially those who are broiler farmers, will benefit greatly from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development’s first poultry abattoir in the province.
The facility is situated at Kgora Farmers Training Centre near Mahikeng.
See PODCAST below
Thuthukani Hlangu, assistant director at the training centre, tells OFM News that the centre will assist small scale farmers in reducing postproduction costs by slaughtering the chickens when it is time for them to be slaughtered.
He explains that specifically broilers are bred to eat, grow and put on weight within a period of six weeks. Once this cycle is completed, then the chickens should be slaughtered.
The abattoir has the capacity to slaughter 500 chickens a day and employs about nine people, says Hlangu.
At the moment, farmers are not charged a fee to have their chickens slaughtered at the facility.
“It will help especially the small broiler farmers to just focus on growing chickens and not worry about processing the chickens… Because there’s a huge demand for chickens - we import about 39 million tons of chicken,” he further explains.
READ: Poultry farmers suffer further tariff increases
The facility is operating under the supervision of an independent meat inspector as required by law, and it has been registered as a low throughput abattoir.
Meanwhile, the department says in a statement that MEC Desbo Mohono, who welcomed the completion of the first departmental-owned poultry abattoir in the province, said the facility is one of many important interventions by her department which is aimed to improve the lives of communities in rural areas through infrastructure development.
“We have a meat inspector at the abattoir so we can confidently say to the farmers who are bringing in their chickens for slaughter that we are slaughtering under proper hygienic conditions," said Mohono.
READ: Poultry Q&A with young NC poultry farmer
Other projects currently underway at the training centre include training sessions for farmers who have their own poultry abattoir or who would like to have their own poultry abattoir.
Hlangu says that this centre also has an operational mini hatchery where they hatch indigenous chickens. It also consists of a broiler and a layer facility.
Other projects that are looming is a piggery and road upgrades to the centre.
“The idea is to make Kgora an open book for farmers to demonstrate best farming practices where farmers can learn from,” concludes Hlangu.
OFM News
