Dr. Gerardine Mukeshimana, Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources
The Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources Dr. Gerardine Mukeshimana urged Rwandan farmers to take advantage of the leading actors in the poultry investment that are currently in the country for Poultry Africa summit.
The call was made on Wednesday, October 5, while officiating the opening of Poultry Africa 2022, in Kigali Convention Center.
“I urge Rwanda poultry business owners to take advantage of the presence of the captains of this industry, to establish lasting business partnerships to improve your respective poultry operations,” she urged.
“To those that wish to start engaging in various poultry value chain business, this is your time,” the Minister added.
Minister Mukeshimana highlighted how Rwanda’s poultry industry is transforming from subsistence to more knowledge-intensive and market-oriented poultry farming.
According to the Minister, in 2019, Rwanda had 15 large commercial poultry farmers, 108 medium and 222 small commercial poultry farmers. Since then, the country has grown to have 27 large commercial poultry farmers, 258 medium poultry farmers and 265 small commercial poultry farmers.
“Our five years Livestock Master Plan identified poultry as one of the avenues to contribute to national food security, nutrition security, income generation, and job creation. It projected an increase of 124% in chicken meat and 110% in egg production to 2023,” she further said.
Zhenja Antochin, Senior Project Manager at VIV Asia and Africa said that Poultry Africa 2022 is focusing on increasing local production and, thereby, decreasing dependency on imports.
“Biosecurity, automation, farm management, and cold chain solutions are the other reoccurring themes that are being showcased. All of these will help poultry farmers to learn and overcome the challenges they meet in their sector, which will increase their productivity and be less dependent on imports.
He further commended what the Government of Rwanda is doing to promote Rwanda’s poultry farming sector; and shared the background of their Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs (an Exhibition and Convention Centre in Utrecht, the Netherlands) company that started back in 1917 aiming at enhancing trade by connecting people.
The company has VIV Brand, that back in 1978 started to organize trade fairs focusing on animal protein productions, and later in 2017 launched Poultry Africa in Rwanda. They are the main organizers.
Poultry Africa, a three-day Expo, and Conference in Kigali brought together farmers, processors, food ingredients manufacturers, poultry products distributors, and packaging equipment manufacturers from around the world.
