Online Training Gives Wings To Developing Poultry Farmers

The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns in South Africa have profoundly disrupted education and training of all types in the country, and agriculture is no exception. The KwaZulu-Natal Poultry Institute is adapting to the new normal to ensure that aspirant and existing poultry farmers, as well as their employees, continue to receive top-class training in all aspects of poultry production. Lloyd Phillips reports.

- Lloyd Phillips

FAST FACTS

The KwaZulu-Natal Poultry Institute (KZNPI) has offered training courses for nearly 30 years, and the South African Poultry Sector Master Plan has boosted demand for these courses.

COVID-19 lockdown restrictions have spurred the development of online courses by the KZNPI.

Because trainees are studying at home, they can compare course theory first hand with what is happening in their poultry houses.

Since its establishment in 1992 as a private, non-profit training facility, the KwaZulu-Natal Poultry Institute (KZNPI) has provided theoretical and practical courses to thousands of people from South Africa and other African countries. These trainees have included everyone from subsistence farmers to employees of large corporates in the poultry value chain.

Dr Nicky Tyler, a lecturer in animal and poultry science at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and chairperson of the KZNPI, says that trainees usually undergo three to five days of intensive theoretical and practical training at the institute’s premises in Pietermaritzburg, boarding on site. This changed, however, with the arrival of COVID-19 in early 2020.

“For our on-site training, we have lecture rooms, and eight production units housing commercial layer hens, broiler breeders, and broilers, all of different ages and at different stages of development and production,” he says. “We also have a small demonstration hatchery and facilities for trainees to learn how to conduct postmortems to identify the more common health problems found in poultry production.”

TRAINING IN ALL ASPECTS