Poultry farming targets 500 households in South Sudan capital

By Simon Deng

A project of poultry farming in the South Sudanese capital has been launched by the Veterinairies Sans Frontiers funded by the Suisse Development Corporation and in Central Equatoria state with a target reach of 500 households.

Targets areas for the project include Gumbo, Lologo, Jebel Nyoka, Gabat and Kafuri.

“Through funding from Suisse development corporation, we worked with the ministry to renovate the poultry unit at the ministry of animal resources, we did a survey and they selected vulnerable women and youth from four different areas in Juba spanning from Lologo to Gudele,” Phanuel Adwera, the Country Director for Veterinaires Sans Frontieres told reporters in Juba on December 10.

 “We selected initially a total of 500 households to benefit from the poultry project,” Adwera said.

“We brought poultry for breeding and we distributed to households, we selected broiler, a dual purpose breed, that breed grows very quickly, it feeds like local ones but it grows faster than the local one but also it produces 150 to 200 eggs as compare to the local which will produce between 40 to 50 eggs.”

John Tombe Vincent, the Director General of Livestock Development described poultry farming as a lucrative business, and that farmers need financial support to start the poultry business.

“We have farmers here who are eager to enter into this business of poultry because poultry is lucrative business in Juba, if you are poultry farmer, you will get some cash, we are just trying to mobilize resources,” Vincent said.

“As a government we want to establish hatcheries, we have to make our own feeds locally, we have to give credit facilities through financial institution,” he said.

 “If all things are produced locally, the cost of birds will reduce and it will stop importing from outside the country.”