PAZ laments small-scale farmers’ failure to form cooperatives

PAZ laments small-scale farmers’ failure to form cooperatives
Written by George Zulu in Monze
Saturday, March 28, 2009 8:33:38 PM

POULTRY Association of Zambia (PAZ) executive manager Mathews Ngosa has said the failure by small-scale poultry farmers to form and promote cooperatives was the greatest challenge the organisation was facing in protecting the industry from unfair treatment.

In an interview in Monze after the district Annual General Meeting, Ngosa said his organisation was not happy that small-scale poultry farmers had failed to form and promote cooperatives as a business entity in order to increase and pull production together to compete favourably on the local market.

Ngosa said the formation of poultry farmer groups would help to determine and dictate the market price of poultry products and reduce on the cost of managing the business unlike having the freestyle the industry was facing.

“I should say that as PAZ, we are very disappointed and not happy that farmers are reluctant to form cooperatives, I have to mention that cooperatives are important as they help out farmers in so many ways to increase production and receive extension services which are difficult to receive when you operate as an individual small-scale farmer. The formation of cooperatives enhances competition and increases production hence they will be able to dictate the market price of their produce and other bulk buying incentives,” he said.

And Ngosa has said his association was saddened by some millers who were quoting prices of feed in foreign currencies, saying the trend had an adverse effect on the Zambian economy.

He said major players in the poultry industry were small-scale farmers, hence quoting prices of feed in US dollar was an expensive move which would lead to the collapse of the industry which had recorded some steady growth in the recent past.

ìDollarisation is our serious concern in this industry; our poultry farmers have been affected, we have asked government to subsidise maize to millers as it would reduce the prices of feed and it will be a relief which will ensure farmers are kept in the business,” said Ngosa.

And Tiger Feeds technical advisor Justine Chibwe said unstable market trends had affected the operations of the company due to the economic difficulties the country was experiencing resulting from the current global credit crunch.

Chibwe however said his company had come up with a mitigation measure by introducing two cost-effective feeds on the market, the Stargro and Grofin, to enhance businesses of small-scale poultry farmers.