Teacher starts poultry business

Atasiga Joseph feeds his chickens.

by Justice A. Sam

Atasiga Joseph is a young teacher who has an interest in poultry production in Kobrim, a community on the outskirts of Ejisu. The location of the community makes access to affordable food products challenging and residents are limited to buying food only on Wednesdays and Sundays.

Joseph wanted to start keeping poultry but did not have the knowledge or experience. Though he keeps a small number of local fowls in his compound for his family, he wanted to start a commercial poultry business. To him, keeping poultry in his community meant he could give his community more access to protein (in the form of eggs and chicken), and earn him additional income to support his family. He also looked forward to hiring farm hands amongst the young people in his community. As a youth leader, he believed his success would inspire his colleagues to have the courage to start their own agribusinesses.

Joseph consulted Justice, a staff member at Self Help International, who works with the Agriculture Entrepreneurship Development (AED) for advice. Joseph constructed his poultry house and received his first batch of 200 broilers in November, 2021. It was very challenging as it was his first time handling that number of chicks. From his records, he lost only 12 birds. He learned how to dress and properly present his birds for sale and started to sell chicken to his neighbors when his birds were nine weeks old. Joseph has plans to purchase his next batch of 400 layers for egg production. He also intends to keep producing broilers for Christmas and Easter festivities when there is greater demand.

Joseph is happy with the experience he has gathered and is confident to handle larger number of chickens. He is certainly an inspiration to his colleagues in his community and expresses gratitude to the AED team for the support. Joseph is ready and confident he can teach his colleagues who want to start poultry production. Today, he is a proud owner of a business and is solving a problem in his community.