The U.S. Grains Council supported the Poultry Association of Tanzania (PAT) as the organization hosted the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Poultry Liaison Forum and the first annual Tanzania Poultry Show (TPS) in December 2015. These efforts, aided in part by Food for Progress (FFP) funding, were both first-of-their-kind events in Tanzania and have led to both discussions on the development of a regional feed millers association and the importation of poultry feed enzymes to Tanzania.
The SADC Poultry Liaison forum was a great accomplishment for the PAT organization as they only had 11 months to plan and organize this meeting. The forum attracted participants from nine SADC countries including Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The objective of the forum was for regional industry members to share their challenges and opportunities in efforts to support their collective poultry and feed production. In addition, the participating countries are working to develop a Sub-Saharan African regional Southern African Feed Millers Association (SAFMA) out of the connections being made through the forum.
The TPS show was attended by 1,321 participants and 20 international and local exhibitors. Associated with it were presentations local and international industry members providing information to the attendees on how to improve their poultry production methods. As a result of the show, a buyer in Tanzania purchased a container shipment of poultry feed ration enzymes.
The Council’s ongoing work in Tanzania supported by FFP is building a regional support system to help local feed producers and farmers continually educate themselves and provide products of increasing quality to consumers, which will lead to higher demand for coarse grains as feed over the long term.