Entrepreneurial Development In The Poultry Sector In Kitwe

Poverty is a common phenomenon in Zambia.The key to poverty alleviation in this ever-changing and the increasingly complex global economy is entrepreneurship.The researchers seek to present and analyse how Kitwe District,a city of Zambia,deal with poverty through entrepreneurship in the poultry sector.Poultry farmer-entrepreneurs in Kitwe District see their farms as a means of making a living and therefore a business.They are passionate about business and are willing to take calculated risks to make their farms profitable and their businesses grow.This study focused on entrepreneurial development in the poultry sector.Based on the entrepreneurship practices of Kitwe District?s poultry sector,the aims of the research were to 1)investigate the investments opportunities in the poultry sector.2)Assess the influence of investment on entrepreneurial development in the poultry sector.3)Examine the poultry farm management practices and managerial skills essential for entrepreneurial growth in the poultry sector in Kitwe District.4)Put forward the entrepreneurial challenges faced by the poultry sector in Kitwe District.The research is a survey and descriptive.The researcher adopted the quantitative research approach in the study.Fifty Zambian poultry farmers in the Kitwe District were selected using convenient sampling.The findings of the study showed that 1)Investors can consider areas such as poultry housing,feed manufacturing equipment,hatching equipment,poultry drugs and vaccines,poultry meat processing equipment,ventilation systems,brooding systems and water supply/treatment systems.In addition,poultry expertise and climate control equipment are areas of investments.By implication,the government should enact flexible policies to attract investor to the poultry sector.2)For poultry entrepreneurs to increase their market shares,increase production and improve the quality of the poultry products,their infrastructures and capital base plays a key role.When entrepreneurs are given the neccesary support,their productivity will enhance and they will be able to meet the demands of consumers as well as export their products to increase the GDP of the country.Due to this,the government should start providing entrepreneur's with small loans at minimal interest,collateral free,to help them expand their business.3)Most of the polutry farmers lacked the esential managerial skills to enable them run their business effeciently.Areas such as planning,organizing,budgeting,bookeeping were identified as essential to efficient running of poultry farms.Training centers are advised to be set up by the government to train poultry farmers with the essential managerial skill to enable them to manage their businesses effectively and efficeintly.4)The challenges elaborated facing the poultry sector includes: cost of feeds and its availability,diseases,parasites,theft and security issues.Others includes inadequate veterinary officers,deficulty in accessing credit facilities,climatical problems,costs of drugs and vacinations as well as government policies.Urgent intervention by the government and other players to discuss most of the challenges brought out by the farmers is needed to encourage investors as well as other interested entrepreneurs to venture into the poultry business.The study had some limitations which repressed the richness of the research.Most respondents were not willing to give out the information on the issue.Another significant barrier is the fact that I had to depend on the third party to distribute questionnaires and collect data for me,so the efficiency was somehow compromised.