WEST NILE POULTRY FARMERS DECRY LOW BENEFITS DESPITE MUCH SACRIFICE

Three months old SASSO T451 dual purpose chicken ready for sale to small holder farmers.

By Erema George

Arua City

Poultry farmers have decried low benefits from the sale of their chicken as a result of lack of stable and ready markets for chicken in Arua City and Terego District.

While Poultry sales rates and prices in Uganda vary by bird type, breed, and location, the farmers say the business seems manipulative due to unreliable and unstable markets leading to varied prices.

Angella Apio Acidri, a poultry farmer at Kasua cell in Pokea ward, Ayivu division, in Arua city describes the market as unreliable with prices changing anytime.

“The market fluctuates just like for any other product but for chicken it depends on which breed you are dealing in. Now if you take the percentage of chicken sold on every market day, it’s a lot, because as a farmer you are not alone in the market, there are very many players so you have to still strategize, you either go early or you keep picking contacts but sometimes they follow you in the farm and pick the birds, so that is how the market has been,” Apio lamented.

Meanwhile Anthony Alimani, an upcoming poultry farmer who raises SASOT451 dual purpose chicks and sells them after three weeks says due to unreliable market, buyers manipulate them a lot;

“They will want you to reduce the price even though you take high quality birds because there are many suppliers there, so you will be forced to sell them at 9,000/= which is a bit of a loss considering the production cost. personally I think building farmer groups can really help a lot because every time farmers come together they will discuss about ideas, farming is not something that you can do alone, it always requires collective efforts, growing together is always a priority in farming not I should first grow and the others will follow.” Alimani noted.

However, Innocent Abiyo, an extension worker with Zion Agro vet LTD, a commercial agent dealing in animal and crop enterprises providing extension and consultancy services to farmers across West Nile acknowledges the hustle farmers go through and implores farmers to consider linking with each other.

“Most farmers normally raise their birds and when it comes to selling they find it very challenging and as Zion agro vet, we have our WhatsApp platform with more than a thousand farmers and these farmers also act as customers for each other, meaning we link farmers and even here at our shop, we do receive customers who normally want birds and for that we always give those chances to our customers.” Abiyo said.

The story of poor sales for poultry in Arua City and Terego highlights the struggle many poultry farmers go through while looking for beneficial rewards for their hard work in the poultry business in the West Nile region as a result of unstable markets.