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Soya beans

Lovemore Zigara, Midlands Correspondent
SOYA bean shortages have hit the poultry industry threatening the viability of the sector.

This comes as the local poultry sector is yet to recover from the effects of the highly pathogenic H5N8 avian influenza virus commonly known as bird flu which broke out in the country in May.

Although it has since been contained, the virus has had negative effects on production.

Soya bean is one of the critical components in the production of stock feed.

Gweru-based poultry producer Fairhill Chickens, one of the local poultry producers, has borne the brunt of shortages of soya beans on the market.

Fairhill Chickens managing director Mr Trevor Shaw said if the soya bean shortage persist, the company might be forced to reduce production.

“This has been a very tough environment. At the moment, there has been shortages of key raw materials like soya beans and soya bean meal because it is imported. If the problems persist we might be forced to cut on our production so that our stock feeds commensurate with the chickens that we have,” he said.

Mr Shaw said the shortages of forex on the market has also seen the price of poultry products shooting up.

“The access to forex is an issue and those who are supplying us, source foreign currency from different markets and obviously there is a cost to that and this has had an effect on the local market,” he said.

“Anything imported has all gone up and in some cases by up to 100 percent and these are key essentials that you can’t do without. Those costs are passed on to us and we also pass that to our customers,” added Mr Shaw.

Poultry producers have started importing hatching eggs from Europe following an outbreak of Avian flu from the traditional source market, South Africa. — @lavuzigara1.