Africa’s poultry industry is facing a challenge that reaches far beyond the price of chicken feed. Rising and volatile costs of yellow maize and soya are squeezing poultry producers, particularly small and medium-scale farmers, while making it harder for new entrants to establish viable businesses.
Yet the same crisis is exposing an opportunity that could reshape parts of the continent’s agricultural economy: building a youth-led feed value chain that links crop production, processing, finance and poultry production.
Poultry is among the more accessible agricultural enterprises for young people because it requires a shorter production cycle than many livestock ventures and serves a growing market for affordable animal protein. But high feed costs can quickly erode the margins that make poultry attractive.
When maize and soya prices increase, farmers have little room to absorb the additional expense, forcing some to scale back production or abandon expansion plans. The result is a problem that affects farmers, aspiring agripreneurs and consumers alike.
Bold public policy
Writing in Food For Mzansi on September 9, Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (Sacau) chief executive officer (CEO) Ishmael Sunga argues that Africa should stop viewing high poultry feed costs solely as a burden and instead treat them as a potential engine for youth employment and agribusiness.
His proposal centres on bold public policy, patient agricultural finance and partnerships between young producers and established commercial farmers.
At the heart of the proposal is the need to produce more feed ingredients locally. Africa needs increased production of yellow maize and soya, stronger aggregation systems, improved storage, greater oilseed processing capacity and more feed mills.
Better distribution systems would also be required to move raw materials and finished feed efficiently from production areas to poultry enterprises.
For young people, this creates opportunities well beyond keeping chickens. Youth-owned businesses could emerge around maize and soya production, aggregation, storage, oilseed crushing and feed manufacturing.
Other opportunities include alternative feed ingredients, quality testing, logistics, bulk procurement and digital advisory services.
Beyond encouragement
But access to opportunity requires more than encouraging young people to enter agriculture. They need land, inputs, mechanisation, irrigation, finance, storage facilities, reliable buyers, technical mentorship and predictable routes to markets.
Without these foundations, youth-focused agricultural programmes risk producing trained young people without giving them the means to build commercially sustainable enterprises.
Sunga argues that this is where established commercial farmers could become important partners. Rather than being viewed simply as mentors, they could serve as anchor partners around whom groups of young producers are organised.
Commercial farmers already possess many of the assets that young farmers struggle to obtain, including machinery, irrigation systems, storage facilities, technical expertise, input networks and established relationships with financial institutions and markets.
Structured partnerships could allow these resources to be shared with youth producer clusters. Commercial farmers could assist with production planning, mechanisation, input procurement, crop drying, storage, quality control, aggregation and market access.
In return, they could earn income from providing services while improving the utilisation of their existing infrastructure.
Finance
Finance remains another major barrier. Young agricultural entrepreneurs often lack collateral, established credit histories and the scale required to negotiate favourable lending terms.
Sunga proposes a model in which commercial farmers could act as wholesale financing channels, securing larger credit facilities and extending support to youth outgrowers through inputs, working capital, mechanisation and post-harvest services.
Such arrangements could make lending less risky for financial institutions because youth producers would operate within organised structures backed by production plans, insurance, off-take agreements and repayment mechanisms linked to produce deliveries.
The young farmer would gain access to finance and markets, while the commercial farmer would benefit from expanded supply and service income.
Government policy would also have to create conditions that make the model commercially attractive. Proposed measures include tax relief for qualifying youth-led maize, soya, aggregation, oilseed-processing and feed-milling businesses, alongside VAT exemptions or rebates on selected agricultural inputs and equipment.
Reduced duties on specialised machinery for mechanisation, processing, drying and quality testing could further lower investment costs.
Financing could be supported through concessional interest rates, seasonal production loans, grace periods that correspond with crop cycles, longer repayment periods and working-capital facilities.
Credit guarantees, first-loss arrangements and insurance-linked lending could encourage banks to support young producers who have viable businesses but limited collateral.
Warehouse receipt finance could provide another tool. By storing grain in certified facilities and using warehouse receipts as collateral, young farmers and aggregators could access short-term financing without being forced to sell immediately after harvest, when prices may be weakest.
Need for safeguards
The model, however, would need safeguards to ensure that young farmers retain genuine ownership of their businesses. Youth producers should have fair contracts, transparent deductions, timely payments, access to dispute-resolution mechanisms and opportunities to build their own assets and credit histories. Their participation should not simply provide cheap labour within businesses controlled by others.
The proposed youth feed economy therefore stretches from the farm to the feed mill and ultimately to the poultry house. Young entrepreneurs could participate in maize and soya production, aggregation, feed milling, oilseed-cake supply, logistics, quality assurance and distribution, creating multiple entry points into the agricultural value chain.
About Ishmael Sunga
Ishmael Sunga is the CEO of the Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (Sacau), an organisation representing agricultural unions in Southern Africa.
