'Gold' In Poultry Sector

Poultry Sector: A Hushed ‘Gold Mine’

By Ernest Ndukong

Poultry farming in Cameroon is fast deviating from the traditional manual style to a mechanized and industrial approach. Its utilisation too, is not only tilted to a near hand-to-mouth issue, but increasingly becoming a commercial anxiety.

Poultry is a category of domesticated birds raised for the purpose of collecting their eggs and eating as meat. Broilers are mostly kept for meat and are eventually eaten as meat after about six years of egg production.

Examples of poultry birds include; chicken, duck, goose, mute swan, ostrich, guinea fowl and rhea. The purpose for either’s rearing may be for meat, feathers, eggs, ornamentation, leather and oil. Some birds are equally used for landscaping.

Almost all the various poultry techniques which include free-range, yarding, intensive chicken farming, indoor with higher welfare are practised in Cameroon, depending on the topography, climate and the financial potentials of the farmer.

The market for poultry products is an ever-increasing one and it is further delighted because the products become more valuable with the passage of time. A gate crasher at a university graduation ceremony once quipped that the success or failure of any occasion lies on the availability of chicken in all forms on the table. It is very unusual, if not impossible, for an occasion to hold without a poultry product as a main dish.

George Fisiy, a poultry farmer, disclosed that about FCFA 2,000 profit is made on every mature chicken sold. He is certain to double or triple the quantity of chicken as the market approaches its December boom period. An elated Fisiy also divulged that the about 2,500 birds occupy a space estimated at 200 square meters. On where to put the expected increment of the number of chicks, he plans to construct bans in the same hall, provide sufficient light and heat to guarantee their smooth growth. He will also fetch over FCFA 100,000 from sale of eggs a day if just 2,000 chickens lay an egg a day and he sells at FCFA 50 each.

Fisiy could not immediately establish the exact cost to grow a fowl from infantry to maturity but maintains the already stated profit on sale of a mature chick. He shares a similar view with Medoulou Medoulou, Director General of Ferme Modern du Sud in Meyomessala, who attests that a chicken lays an egg every day.

Medoulou’s estate has three production rooms with over 8,000 birds in each.

The Benefits

The financial gain is an enchantment to the farmer but the nutritional value to the consumer is arguably more than the cost borne to put a poultry product on the table. Eggs are rich in nutrients with a high protein quality, vitamins and minerals. They equally contain folate which reduces birth blemishes and cardiovascular diseases, and aids in the absorption of calcium.

Meat contains immense protein, fatty acids, iron, zinc and nutrients that necessitate healthy bodies. The iron in meat strengthens the bones and help to repair body tissues. It also boosts the immune system, thus facilitating the metabolisation of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Poultry products are highly recommended for children and adolescents.

Sector To Be Enhanced

Brazil, September 13, signed a partnership deal with the Practical Farming School of Binquela, in the Mefou and Akono Division, Centre Region to improve the poultry sector. The deal is aimed at exchanging poultry technology and training between the two nations.

The Director of the School, Michel Abega, and the Rector of Brazil’s Institut Federal de l’Education des Technologies, Professor Sebastien Edson Moura, singed the corporation accord.

Experts from Israel are also training agro-industrial engineers of the farming school on modern techniques of poultry farming. With this acquaintance, the products will reach our markets in large scale, meaning lowered prices, more money to the farmer, reduced FCFA spent on its importation resulting to a better balance of payment, more meat and eggs and more proteins in our bodies.