Plastic materials in Kenya have been one of the leading land and water pollution. The Ministry of Agriculture in Bungoma County under the department of Agriculture Sector Development Program ASDP is counting on success after being able to discover a tool used to keep chicks made from plastics.
The tool known as brooder is made from ten plastic jericans, five ten litres, a wire mesh and a few pieces of wood. It accommodates more than 100 chicks that stay there for one month.
It was discovered in the year 2008 by JUGOMA PRIME LIMITED which is an umbrella in the department of ASDP after they had tried several methods of keeping chicks from day one after they are hatched but failed and loses that they incur from their previous methods they applied.
According to Douglas Juma Situma head of poultry Kanduyi Constituency, use of brooder is one way of environmental conservation since the poorly disposed material can be recycled to perform other tasks.
Brooders have helped to reduce the mortality rate of chicks, they are modified in a way that chicks provide warmth for themselves where they do not require electricity, reduces contamination in feeding chicks, farmers benefits more since they use their refuse that is collected twice per day as fertilizer to their crops in their farm and also fish farmers get them as feeds for their fish.
The feeding and housing tool of chicks is portal and flexible that is easier to clean which has helped to reduce the bio-security. It has also provided jobs to many of the residents around the County who are earning their living from the brooder. It is a source of income to the government and the County since the chicks refuse are sold as well as the brooders.
Many of the people from outside the County are benefiting from the organization hence their own people are not aware of this opportunity that exists in their County.
This has led to the Ministry of Agriculture to call upon all the jobless youths to walk in one of their offices around the County to be taught how to make the tool so that they can be self-employed as they practice poultry farming.
Khisa Nafula
