Small scale poultry farmers in Limpopo say escalating prices of chicken products are affecting their businesses.
There are growing concerns by consumers and chicken producers that prices of chicken are getting higher. This is largely due to the impact of COVID-19, rising inflation and tax.
However, there are also concerns about the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on grain prices.
Kamogelo Olaitan has been breeding and selling chickens from her home at Ga-Semenya in Moletjie for about 10 years.
“We are spending more in the business than what we are making. We are basically just surviving in this business and you ask yourself should I go on, what am I making, the profit is not what it used to be three years ago, and also with the lack of funding, we have land, but you need money to build, you need money to stock on fertile eggs.”
Limpopo Agriculture spokesperson Joshua Kwapa says government is working closely with poultry producers through this difficult time.
“We are quite aware of the difficulties they are going through as a matter of fact, we’ve got programs aimed at assisting small holder farmers including poultry. We obviously look at the whole range, through letsema and fetsa tlala we assist our farmers in terms of feeds, in terms of day old chicks.”
