Better Times Ahead for Zambia's Industry

ZAMBIA - Yielding Feeds predicts the recovery of the poultry industry now that feed prices have come down.
calendar icon 8 September 2009
clock icon 3 minute read

Post Zambia reports that Yielding Feeds (YF) has predicted a recovery of the poultry industry citing improvements in egg production.

In a statement, YF general manager, Sven Pihlblad, stated that the woes of the past eight months experienced by the poultry industry were now a thing of the past.

He said: "Egg production has returned to profitability largely due to lowered stock feed prices to levels that existed a year ago and the improved egg tray price that can now fetch as much as 18,000 kwacha [ZMK] a tray wholesale price. The woes of the past eight months experienced by the poultry industry have now been put behind us."

He stated that the high stock feed prices of that time put about 40 per cent of poultry farmers on reduced production or out of the business altogether.

"The factors resulting in those exorbitant feed prices came from expensive maize and soya bean that are vital and substantial components of stock feed production. These were in short supply due to a poor global harvest and had to be imported into Zambia at a time when the kwacha did the industry no favours by depreciating from about ZMK 3,500 per US dollar to over ZMK 5,800 per US dollar," he stated.

Mr Pihlblad stated that egg production gross margins fell as a result to percentages below 20 making the farmer struggle to pay overheads.

"Further challenges came from reduced demand from the market place as the consumer pocket was hit by the global economic downturn resulting in job losses," Mr Pihlblad told Post Zambia.

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