SOMALIA – Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA), Turkey’s leading development aid agency, has built a modern poultry farm with a total floor space of 198 sq. meters in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.

The poultry farm equipped with modern equipment, feed units, vaccines has a holding capacity of 1200 ATAK-S layer chicks.

The initiative is part of the “Project for Developing Layer Poultry Farming in Somalia,” implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of the Republic of Turkey, IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, and Zamzam University.

Assoc. Prof. Serdar Kamanlı from the Directorate of Poultry Research Institute in Ankara trained Somali academics and specialists at Zamzam University in order to share Turkey’s knowledge of poultry farming.

After the training, the farm was put into service with the participation of Turkish and Somali officials.

The project is aimed to provide food and employment opportunities for the growing population in Somalia, located in the Horn of Africa, and to create new sectors in the country.

TIKA supplies Kenya with honey testing equipment

In other related news, TİKA recently provided technical equipment to improve the honey analysis capacity of the National Beekeeping Institute of Kenya.

The equipment provided by TİKA, including a nitrogen generator for the analysis of antibiotic residues in honey, devices measuring water and sugar content in honey, and laptop computers, printers, and projectors to be used for training and reporting purposes.

The Institute, which was unable to measure and report the amount of antibiotic residue in honey due to lack of equipment, now has access to the infrastructure needed to test honey by measuring and reporting different parameters, using the equipment provided.

This will ensure the quality of honey availed in the country meets the required quality standards.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), records that Kenya produces approximately 7300 tonnes of honey annually.

This is 700 tonnes less than what is produced in the neighbouring country, Tanzania. USAID, further voices that each of the two countries have a potential to produce about 100,000 tonnes of honey each year.

The agency highlights Ethiopia as the region’s powerhouse in the honey export market with an estimated production of 45,300 tonnes.

Data from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics illustrates that Kenya imports honey worth sh23 million (US$228,604), from Tanzania, Egypt and Australia.

The United Arabs Emirates (UAE), the world’s richest honey market, is the major market for the continent’s honey where it fetches ksh 1500-2000 (US$ 15-20) per kilogram.

These prices could scale to ksh 5000 (US$ 50) per kilogram if the honey gets a fairtrade and organic certifications.

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