By: Nyima Sillah
Despite surge in demand of poultry products in the country, a poultry farmer has lamented on the slowdown in recent time caused by the coronavirus pandemic as most of their business customers have especially in the tourism sector have closed down.
Speaking to The Voice in a telephone conversation is Lalu Minteh proprietor of Minteh’s Poultry Farm he said: “Covid-19 has impacted all the business sectors including the poultry farmers and we are experiencing low demands compare to before when there was no pandemic. Now we are having much wastage particularly eggs that are produce on daily basis and it is due to low sales.”
The impact of coronavirus, he said, has caused him to limit his production to only eggs. He added that his poultry farm has high capacity to produce more eggs because here “we are having five to six thousand layers so the eggs we have on daily basis are too much. This makes it hard to sustain with waste produce because of the supply is not normal.”
“Before Covid-19 we used to supply egg to so many places including schools and government departments, but now the demand is very low due to sit at home among other reasons.”
Among other sad things is that some of his staff according to him are laid-off because he couldn’t afford to pay their salaries, while the daily expenditure keeps on rising.
He said: “We are just coping with the government standard (150) due to the help of their daily manure production from the hens which support them lot in terms of sales because the amount of bags they produce per week is high which make it easy for them in paying their staff and some of their necessary expenses.”
He however called for government support amid the coronavirus pandemic, adding that “most of our chicks are imported and we find it hard to buy and transport them especially in this trying time and also payment of tax because the amount we pay at GRA is very high.”
