The Poultry Association of Zambia (PAZ) and the SNV of the Netherlands have embarked on improving the skills of poultry farmers and players in the industry through trainings in agri-business skills.
The main objective of the poultry masterclasses trainings are aimed at improving skills in the poultry sector, specifically of Zambian farms, processors, marketing and export managers and other important stakeholders
PAZ executive manager Dominic Chanda said there is need to address the lack of knowledge and skills regarding commercial poultry production.
“The first phase of the training will focus on Lusaka and Copperbelt and surrounding areas targeting a total of 100 professionals and key service providers. These will benefit from these masterclasses.
“The goal is for each trainer to train at least 100 farmers, thus reaching a minimum of 10,000 farmers in phase one. A total of four masterclass trainings will be conducted in both phase one and phase two,” Mr Chanda said.
Meanwhile, Ross breeders in partnership with Farm Depot and Avian Ventures on the Copperbelt have embarked on a series of poultry seminars focusing on the new vaccination programme, managing heat stress in broilers and introduction of master farmers, feed.
In this new programme, exclusive to Ross broiler chicks only, broiler farmers are only required to vaccinate once at day 10 against New Castle disease [NCD] and infectious bronchitis disease [IBD].
“This is because these chicks have been vaccinated at the hatchery using Vectormune and Transmune vaccines against NCD and IBD respectively.
