LINSTEAD:
SEVERAL AGENCIES in St. Catherine are encouraging entrepreneurs to start producing poultry in order to stabilise the cost of chicken meat.
Regional Manager for the Jamaica 4H Club in St. Catherine, Linton Barnes, speaking at the 4H training centre in Linstead on Monday, told 4H trainees that there were plans for the 4H Clubs to have their own chicken hatchery, as one means of keeping the cost of chicken meat at a reasonable price, now that Jamaica Broilers have increased the cost of chicken to the consumers.
Meanwhile, parish manager for the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) in St. Catherine, Tony Whyte, said that small entrepreneurs engaged in poultry production, for the local market as well as their own consumption, are being assisted with technical advice from the RADA officers on how to produce chicken on a profitable basis. At least two housewives in St. Catherine, Muriel Beckett of Troja and Deloris Wright of Riversdale, who were made redundant from their jobs and who had to shoulder family responsibilities, said they were successfully engaged in poultry rearing.
The women said they now rear small batches of chicken, from one to two dozen per poultry house, and were finding a ready market for the chickens from within their communities.
The housewives also agreed that they find it easier to feed the chickens in smaller batches, as this proves more economical.
