by Mapande Mapande
Today more and more Zambians want to earn a living through agriculture in order to economically support their lives and ultimately improve the standard of living for the country. With the introduction of Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) awareness, individuals tend to venture into profitable businesses to sustain their lives and those of others.
Broiler rearing has become one of those profitable businesses and therefore an increasing number of people are venturing into it. On the 14 of January 2012 Avian Ventures, a local supplier of chicks and feed in conjunction with USAID under the Capacity Building Project, organized a field day to educate existing and potential small-scale broiler chicken farmers on how to maximize profits from the discipline. The seminar was targeted at small scale famers in Ndola.
Northrise Farms provided the venue and our very own Farm Foreman, Mr. Gilbert Musonda, was the facilitator. Northrise Farms bestowed its expertise in broiler chicken farming, emphasizing on the importance of good timing, proper feed usage, curbing and prevention of diseases in order to have standard chickens for the market and ensuring customer satisfaction.
Attendees of the field day were very grateful to have been given the opportunity to learn modern ways of chicken rearing at NU Farms. One of them commented that they did not know that Northrise University was so invested in farming and in trying to improve the agriculture as well as poultry rearing methods and skills of the local small scale farmer. They hoped for more of such events in future.