THE PACD-Project through the partnership model program is fulfilling its objective in improving the lives of the rural population.
The basic objective of the project is to facilitate the development of competitive and diversified agriculture value chains for selected commodities in the targeted provinces.
As part of the project design and initiative East New Britain province is the first to have a poultry rollout program with a total of more than 1000 farmers with their households participating.
Kairak Center for Sustainable Rural Development (KCfSRD) in partnership with the PACD-Cocoa project conducted a three-day training last week from March 26 to 28 on Basic Broiler Farming for 150 farmers both men and women including youths at the Kairak Resource Center, Gazelle District of East New Britain.
The aim of the training is to equip participants with the basic knowledge and skills of poultry farming including good waste management practices to mitigate and monitor waste from poultry farming.
Kairak is a productive partnership with the PACD project managing two poultry projects the Noth Baining Poultry, Piggery Commercialization and Galip Diversification project and Ataliklikun Commercial Small Livestock and Galip Diversification.
A total of 1000 farmers have registered under Kairak 500 each and about 14, 000 day-old-chicks have been distributed to the participants beginning in March 2025.
The income generated from the first batch of the rollout program will eventually be used as seed capital save in individual bank accounts with an aim to save money or purchase chicks again and eventually venture into other micro, small to medium enterprise activities.
The participants are expected to use the knowledge acquired in the training to manage poultry projects as a micro enterprise in their respective villages.
Participants Matiran Tutmulai who is a member of the Ataliklikun from Vudal ward, said the training has taught a lot and will motivate her members to adopt best practices in poultry farming.
Representing the Cocoa PACD PMU Productive Partnership Coordinator Martin Powell sit in to witness the end program the certificate presentation to the participants.
PNGUNRE Vice Chancellor Professor Isak Pue and KCfSRD Manager Hosea Turbarat were also present to witness the small yet significant gathering for the farmers.
On behalf of the Cocoa PACD Project Mr Powell urged the gathering that this training is vital as they already received day-old chicks to utilize these knowledge and skills in their small poultry projects.
“Chickens are perfect and sustainable way to ensure adequate protein is included in diet as many surveys shown that there us shortage in protein and is expensive,” he added.
The Kairak farmers are fortunate that they are near the UNRE abattoir, and it is a privilege for them as they do not have to look for a market again.
“Look after your poultry projects sell them and the income look after your families, save some and used some to buy day old chicks again,” said Mr Powell.