Young Poultry Farmer Thrives Despite Setbacks

Asiphe Pentu started his small-scale broiler business with only R2 000 when he was just 17 years old and still at school. After five years, he has a well-run, 100-chicken operation that turns a profit and has a loyal clientele in the local community. Siyanda Sishuba reports.

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Asiphe Pentu runs a poultry farming operation from his home in Beshwana village in Mount Ayliff near Kokstad, in the Eastern Cape.

One of six siblings, Pentu started his business, Khawulela Poultry Farming, in 2014, when he was just 17 and still in Grade 9, due to poverty faced by his family.

His father lives and works in Johannesburg while the rest of the family remains in Mount Ayliff. Most families in the area make a living out of crop farming, but Pentu thought poultry would be a more viable option, as it required less money to get started and he would see returns more quickly. He also knew that chicken was a popular meat product in the community.

AN ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT FROM THE START

To raise the money he needed to launch his operation, he started selling sweets, peanuts and other snacks at one of the busiest intersections in Mount Ayliff and at sporting events. As soon as he had managed to save up R2 000, he bought 50 day-old broiler chicks from a supplier from Matatiele.

In the meantime, he continued attending school at Jojo Senior Secondary, but unfortunately dropped out in Grade 11 in 2018 as he had struggled with mathematics, business studies and accounting.

Despite this setback, he continued to run his broiler chicken operation. And the more he learned about rearing chickens, the more he developed a passion for the business, which has a capacity to rear about 100 chickens at a time.

“When I started the poultry business, my friends used to tease me that I was doing a woman’s job, because poultry farming is commonly done by women in my community,” he recalls.