By Okong’o Oduya
Nairobi, Kenya: The County government of Busia on Tuesday launched a poultry farming program for farmers at Asiriam in Teso South, a project that aims at raising and distributing chicks to farmers across the county to increase poultry farming.
Project funded by the world bank through the Kenya climate smart program (KCSAP) the county set up a multi-million project in Asiriam where the laying and incubation of eggs takes place then chicks are reared to maturity before they mature for market.
Farmers visit the center where they receive education on poultry farming. In today’s event, the government gave out chicks, brooder, feed, and drugs to vaccinate chicks.
According to Busia deputy governor Mr. Arthur Odera, the purpose of the project is to increase poultry production to enable farmers to sustain themselves economically.
“As a County, our priority is to make sure that we enable our people to grow economically. If there are 100 people today who are economically stable, in the next five years we need to have 1,000 people in the business. The department is doing well but there is a lot that should be done to create stability in the sector,” said Mr Odera
Besides the poultry park in Asiriam, the deputy governor noted that the county has set up dairy parks in Butula and Chakol North, and aqua parks in Wakhungu, and Kamarinyang as a way of promoting agriculture in the county.
“The county government is coordinating agricultural activities across the county. Today we are launching a poultry park here, We have the dairy park in Butula then aquaparks in Kamarinyang and Wakhungu in Samia sub-county and this is being done to improve the livelihood of our people,” he noted.
Busia County Commissioner Mr. Kipchumba Rutto appealed to the farmers to embrace the project for their own benefit.
According to him a lot of multimillion projects collapse without benefiting the community due to bad governance, challenging the community to utilize experts and make the project beneficial to the community.
“It is now upon you to let this project last. You have got experts from the county government and other organizations to support you to succeed, utilize them well,” said Mr. Rutto.
County Executive Committee member in charge of Agriculture, livestock fisheries, and Blue economy Dr. Symplicius Mukok said that as a County they are in the process of reviving feed mills at Okarebwa in Teso South to help reduce the cost incurred in buying animal feeds by farmers adding that the limiting factor of production is the cost of the food.
“We’ve got a feed milling machine at Okerebwa Aquapark. The machine has been lying idle for some time now but we want it revived to reduce the cost of buying animal feed. We are told that the limiting factor of production is the cost of animal feed and now that we have the machine to do that work, why should we continue spending much on animal feed? The feed we buy is expensive that is why we have to think of manufacturing our feed locally,” said Dr Mukok.
According to the chief officer Department of Livestock and Fisheries Mr. Timothy Odende, the county government plans to produce 40,000 chickens in every single circle in both poultry parks across the county to satisfy the increasing demand.
