Qacha’snek, April.03 — TKM Agricultural Solutions, a local poultry training and capacity building consultancy Chief Executive and trainer Mr. Ts’iu Malefane says utilizing poultry farming alleviates poverty while scaling-down unemployment rate.
This he revealed at a five-day training workshop for poultry farmers.
The majority of participants are Basotho women coming from different villages around the district.
The objective of the workshop is to equip trainees with knowledge and skills on poultry production on both broilers and layers.
Participants are provided with a training manual; written in Sesotho, and covers the overall rearing content; such as housing-chick placement and brooding, disease management, bio-security, medication, feeding, slaughtering, packaging and marketing.
They are also equipped with commercial broiler layer production that includes basic record-keeping and simplified financial management, marketing and selling, once their projects start.
Emphasizing on the importance of the training, Mr. Malefane said poultry is the second most eaten type of meat globally and along with eggs, they provide high-quality protein accompanied by a low proportion of fat.
“Therefore, the rate of consumption presents an opportunity for Basotho in terms of commercial chicken meat and egg production,” he said.
Mr. Malefane, raised his intention as wanting to make poultry farming a large segment of Agriculture in Lesotho, and therefore calls and appeals to the government to support the initiative.
He said some trained Basotho women and men are producing sufficient meat and eggs.
He said his vision is to see community owned poultry farms producing enough to meet national meat and egg demands and exports to other countries.
“TKM is keen to expand on its training, on technicalities of poultry farming that will extend to other new areas recommended for the farming such as business and marketing planning, resource planning and financial planning as part of the training package or module”, he said.
A participant Mrs. ‘Malerato Ramolibeli, expressed gratitude for the training saying “it is eye opening.”
“I am happy because I have been doing broiler production for the longest time and I have received trainings but it’s been a while hence I got discouraged due to the problems I face,” she said adding “I am happy to learn that I will succeed in examining my mistakes in poultry farming and learn a good way of prizing for profits.”
She said she has a desire for her production to benefit her and her family despite the challenges she encounters being unstable market which leads her to sell on credit.
“We need a butchery to address this problem,” she said.
Mrs. Ramolibeli has been in broiler production since 2006 but she gave up along the way due to similar problems. It was in 2011 when she restarted her business to date.
TKM was founded in 2019. The company’s main focus and objective is to impart and share skills with Basotho on poultry farming.
TKM supports home and field visits to trained farmers. Further support is provided in sourcing and securing the market for selling the farmers’ poultry products.
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