World Poultry Foundation helps train KZN farmers

The US-based World Poultry Foundation (WPF) has developed a new series of online training videos to help emerging African poultry farmers with farming best practice and optimising their farming operations, according to a statement on its website.

The videos are specifically designed to assist small- and mid-size brooding operations and rural farmers. They cover key areas such as management of feed, water, brooding, vaccination, record-keeping, biosecurity and poultry housing.

WPF CEO Randall Ennis said the video series had been developed to address challenges faced by emerging poultry farmers. “In our training sessions and engagements with new and emerging farmers across the African continent, we discovered that many farmers had certain challenges in common. These included feed and water management and accurate record-keeping. We found they were able to significantly improve their outputs and profits once they had access to information on best practices,” he said.

The WPF had collaborated with South Africa’s KwaZuluNatal Poultry Institute (KZNPI) to improve poultry farming and help small farmers expand their operations, Ennis said in the statement.

Dr Nicola Tyler, chairperson of the KZNPI, which offered online and on-site training courses from its private training facility in the Bisley Valley Nature Reserve outside Pietermaritzburg, said the WPF had contributed significantly to the training facility with various poultry enterprises. To date, the collaboration between KZNPI and WPF had resulted in 380 delegates benefitting from various training courses, including broiler production, abattoir management, hatchery management and biosecurity, and online poultry business skills, Tyler said.

She added that the beneficiaries and extension officers who had attended the training so far had provided highly positive feedback.

“About 89% of producers reported a positive impact on quality of life, as well as improved production.

“About 95% reported improved mortality, 71% an improvement in broiler weight gain, and 67% an improvement in egg production. Eighty percent of the producers reported that money earned had improved, and 94% of the extension officers said they had more confidence and spent more time with clients, while also seeing more poultry producers in total.”

The WPF also contributed to building an environmentally controlled broiler house to expose delegates to various housing systems, and a much-improved shower facility to improve biosecurity. – Wouter Kriel