USAID LGP supports training on poultry farming in Morobe Province.
News Highlights November 17, 2023
U.S Agency for International Development (USAID) through its PNG Lukautim Graun Program (LGP) aims to enhance the opportunity for women in Papua New Guinea (PNG) to participate and benefit equitably from economic opportunities which is part of USAID Women’s Global Development Prosperity (WGDP) Initiative. The initiative includes empowering women through equal opportunity within the workforce, in business development ventures and through entrepreneurship.
As part of this initiative, Morobe became the second province after Madang to have a poultry rollout program with a total of 11 women groups and over 400 individual women farmers and their households participating.
USAID LGP, in partnership with DOERS Agro Services conducted a three-day training from the October 23 to 27 on poultry(broiler) farming for 19 participants of which 15 are women (78%) and four men, mainly representatives from women’s group and community-based organizations who had experience with broiler farming from Lae district, Huon Gulf and Nawae district.
The aim of the training is to equip participants, especially women and girls, with the basic knowledge of poultry farming including good waste management practices to mitigate and monitor wastes from poultry farming. The participants were taken through the whole process starting from the construction of a chicken house to identifying suitable market approaches.
The long-term goal of LGP is to have at least 10 groups of 10 women farmers in each of the five provinces for a total of 500 women directly benefiting from this poultry rollout including their households. This project is a one-off support from LGP for the purpose of providing Start-Up-Capital or Seed-Capital to women groups within target geographies for Micro enterprise development through formal business registration and bank account opening for women’s groups. To assist farmers to venture into poultry farming, a total of 20 boxes, each containing 52-day-old chicklets were distributed to the participants.
The participants are expected to use the knowledge acquired in the training to manage poultry projects as a micro enterprise in their respective villages. The beneficiaries are part of the USAID funded LGP Financial Literacy Training participants who will now utilize simple savings and budgeting knowledge to generate income from the poultry project and increased profit to enable savings. The income generated from the poultry rollout program will eventually be used as seed capital to open group bank accounts with an aim to save money and eventually venture into other Micro, Small to Medium Enterprise activities. Beneficiaries will use knowledge acquired to manage poultry project as a micro enterprise in the village.
A number of subject matters expects participated in the training and provided expert advice to the farmers. Among them was James Maima, Area Manager for National Agriculture Research Institute and his technical team who did a demonstration on special feed formulation for broiler feed using dried grated casava with concentrates. Stockfeed is very expensive and one alternative is to provide feed supplements to help reduce cost. The special feed formulation for broiler will help the poultry farmers to minimize the cost of buying stock feed by 40-50%. Mr Maima, expressed his gratitude to be part of the training and is willing to provide technical support to the poultry farmers especially on feed formulation during and after the project rollout within Morobe and other LGP target provinces.
Also in attendance was the Table-birds Outgrower Manager, Willie Garren who provided support to DAS offering more information on the current broiler market with Nuigini table birds, best practices on farm biosecurity, and the company’s commitment in supporting the local growers in the province.
Participant, Ludwina Posing who is a member of the PNG Unified Womens Groups from Sagir village, Tanam within the Huon Gulf District said the training has taught a lot and will motivate her members to adopt best practices in poultry farming. She said, “Thank you, USAID PNG LGP for giving us this poultry training and project”. I’m a poultry farmer myself, however this training has made me identify some of my basic faults in being a poultry farmer which is a positive step for myself and my family”.
Eva Kong, Chairlady, Nasuampum Mama Group was also appreciative of the USAID funded LGP and thanked USAID and DORES Agro Services and everyone who made Poultry Rollout program a success. She said, “It’s a life skills training that will benefit us, the participants and our group members and the community as a whole”.
