This story is one in a series from Frances Chisholm highlighting stories of lives impacted by World Poultry Foundation programs and workshops both in the U.S. and abroad. We encourage you to learn more about Ms. Chisholm and our poultry projects in South Africa.
“I am so proud”
Dinah Dipheko Rachidi is living her dream job as an Agricultural Advisor in South Africa. She loves farming, especially animal production, and poultry is her greatest passion.
Thanks to World Poultry Foundation-funded training opportunities provided at the Kwa-Zulu Natal Poultry Institute, Dinah has been able to hone her poultry production skills and keep abreast of the latest developments in the industry.
She spends about 40 percent of her advisory time providing technical advice on poultry production to backyard poultry farmers, smallholders (those with 200-2,000 birds) and commercial farmers (holding over 2,000 birds and trading in the formal market) in a 50-mile radius of her base in Limpopo province. The mix is about even between layer and broiler producers.
The KZN Poultry Institute training that Dinah has received built on the B.Tech. degree in Animal Production that Dinah earned in 2009. With this terrific foundation Dinah advises her poultry clients on disease symptom recognition, bird behavior, proper medication and feeding, and biosecurity. Where previously only one in ten of her poultry clients vaccinated their birds, now they all do, she said. They have also all introduced foot baths at the entrance to poultry houses, and they do much better in dosing medication and getting the feed right.
Dinah exclaimed that bird mortality has dropped by about ten percent among her clients since introduction of these measures, and broilers are reaching market weight a week sooner – at six weeks. In addition, more smallholders are expanding to a commercial-size operation, financed in part by their increased profits.
Dinah loves her job and delights in the improvements she sees her poultry clients introducing on her advice, “I am so proud of their success.”
The World Poultry Foundation is proud, too, Dinah. Good work!
Ms. Frances Chisholm
Friend & Supporter of the WPF
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