The Marimanti hatchery and poultry project in Tharaka South Sub-county, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, is set to improve poultry production by providing the much-needed inputs for local farmers.
The hatchery is expected to transform the poultry sector by breeding and supplying farmers with the highly demanded one-day-old and one-month-old chicks.
The facility that features a 15,000-egg-capacity hatchery will be a dream come true for the poultry farmers in the region that have been relying on private companies, which has been an expensive undertaking for them.
The initiative is aimed at alleviating poverty and creating employment.
According to Matthew Papa, the head of Marimanti Hatching Center, the facility will bring improvement and change to farmers in the area because they will have access to high-quality breeds of chicks that are disease-resistant and buy as many chicks as they want without any limitation because there will be a flow of production at the facility.
“The one-day-chicks that are very rare to get will be readily available because the farmers will acquire them from the first day they are hatched and monitor their growth. This facility will benefit everyone because by six months the farmer will be able to sell the chicken and get their income,” Papa noted.
The 4,000-chicken modern coop center will house thousands of birds and serve as the primary breeding and poultry multiplication unit.
The facility will also act as a regional research center where the government and agricultural partners will hold trainings for the smallholder farmers on modern, climate-smart poultry management, disease prevention, and commercialization.
“As the county government, we are going to work with the national government to make sure that the farmers benefit from this project, as this will curb all the poultry-related problems in the regions so as to boost the agriculture sector,” Dr. Mutegi Kabisani, the economic advisor to the governor of Tharaka Nithi County, highlighted.
By Dickson Mwiti and Beatrice Mwende
