Livestock project to step-up poultry production

The FCFA 29 billion Livestock and Fisheries Development Project, LIFIDEP, of the Northwest Region will produce over 1.5 day-old chicks that will be distributed free-of-charge to responsible or recognised farming groups to boost poultry production in the region.

Now that studies on identifying breeding farms and hatcheries will soon be over with, LIFIDEP, the poultry sector, within few years, shall experience a boom, though its official launching is still being awaited.

Speaking in Ndop on November 27, during the two-day workshop to plan for the activities of LIFIDEP for 2015, the Project Coordinator, Pius Mbipe Shidiki, said most of the technical aspects have been put in place and now that enough personnel have been recruited with key experts employed, the project will effectively take-off in January 2015.

He said the poultry component of the project is just one among many of such projects that will come to transform the lives of livestock farmers in the Northwest because, technical studies have been completed in the areas of artificial insemination of cattle, multiplication of small ruminants, which will take care of goats, sheep and so on, have been realised already.

Mbipe cited major cattle breeding centres such as TADO cattle milk-breeding and yogourt production centre in Bui Division and SODEPA company in Misaje, alongside 50 other points where artificial insemination will be taking place to ensure that the grazers rear hi-breed animals that will impact positively on the lives of the populations of the Northwest Region.

According to him, some of the problems they are grappling with remain the procurements of goods and services and developing administrative tools to complement the project manual procedure.

Presenting the technical orientation of the workshop, the Director General of MIDENO, John Begheni Ndeh, said the project that has a six-year life span, will improve on the livelihoods of the grassroots people and called on the implementation partners to swing into action immediately.

He said, over the years, MIDENO concentrated on mounting crop production and infrastructure until the livestock sector was becoming almost neglected.

“The coming on board of LIFIDEP is, therefore, MIDENO’s relevant response to redressing the shortcomings of the livestock and fisheries sector of the Northwest Region. He said the planning workshop was meant to review the 2014 activities and results achieved, set objectives and goals for 2015 and make proposals that will determine which outputs that will be prioritised in 2015 and determine which activities and sub-activities are needed in or in order to achieve the outputs.”

Ndeh said the annual work plan and budget, when forwarded to the Islamic Development Bank, IDB, should not be rejected; meaning that the 2015 annual work plan and budget should be realistic and adaptable to permit a direct implementation by multiple implementers and facilitate progress monitoring.

The Second Assistant Senior Divisional Officer for Ngoketunjia, Wilson Ebai Ebi, said, at the end of the two-day workshop, he would expect the implementation partners and other stakeholders to have a common understanding of the activities required to achieve the expected outputs and speedy implantation of the activities. He thanked the Islamic Development Bank for funding the project.