The agribusiness sector

The agribusiness sector
Agribusiness is the sector involved in the production, processing and distribution of agricultural goods and services, and it includes all related activities. Defining agribusiness more narrowly ignores the industry sector that has responded to market forces and has moved away from traditional primary production into manufacturing and distribution activities. For example, the broiler chicken industry has responded to consumer demands by providing lean, tender, disease-free and chemical-free chicken pieces. This industry has moved positively towards meeting consumer demands by controlling the production and manufacturing processes. Producers have little or no direct involvement with the final consumer; however, each producer is focused on the physical and financial demands placed on each subset within their industry. Some operators, for example, the day-old chick producers, would only deal with growers and are therefore only involved in business-to-business transactions. All operators have to produce a quality product at a competitive cost, which means they must take a business approach to management in order to be profitable and remain in business.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to make hay for your rabbits

Image
How to make hay for your rabbits B. Tembani (Senior Animal Scientist) R. Kofi (Agribusiness Consultant)   Many farmers make hay for their livestock or for income and this has been happening for years. The process of making good quality hay is far from just cutting and baling. Efficiently processing hay results in good quality feed available for livestock-rabbits in this case. This module was developed to specifically for rabbit farmers, on how to make or purchase good quality hay for feeding their rabbits to achieve good selling weights. The objective when making hay is to capture and preserve nutrients in a storable form with minimum expenditure. This is mainly so because hay is the main feed in rabbitries, pellets being a supplement. Rabbits are fed nutritious hay to reduce; feed costs and incidence of enteritis/ diarrhoea.    What is hay?    In this module, we define hay as grass, legumes or other nutritious plants that have been cut
Read more

Bio-security in Livestock Production

Image
Bio-security in Livestock Production Bio-security is defined as procedures or measures designed to protect livestock against harmful biological or biochemical substances. Many livestock producers are concerned about diseases in confinement livestock operations. Under these systems, many animals are raised in close contact which increases the spread of diseases. Movement of humans from farm to farm with modernised equipment has also increased the likelihood of diseases transmission. As a result some commercial livestock producers have restricted access to visitors.  There are no vaccines for diseases like foot and mouth diseases (FMD) and avian flu, which leaves bio-security as the first line of defence. The recent outbreaks of the two diseases in the country, indicate a breach in bio-security. More than 200 000 chickens had to be destroyed last year during the outbreak with high economic losses.  Bio-security is everybody's responsibility on farm or factory.
Read more

POULTRY FARMING: BEGINNERS GUIDE TO KEEPING GUINEA FOWL

Image
Guinea fowl often generate mixed emotions, but apart from die-hard enthusiasts, anyone who has lived in close proximity to a bunch of guineas may well go with the second opinion. There’s no denying that guinea fowl are relatively easy to keep, providing you have plenty of space and no near neighbours. They are independent birds, self-sufficient foragers who will find much of their own food. Throughout the spring and summer they are productive layers – if you can find their eggs. Guinea fowl will lay anywhere and everywhere, particularly favouring large clumps of nettles. The eggs are deeply flavoured, with large golden yolks and surprisingly tough shells. They are smaller than standard chicken eggs – more like bantam size – but their richness makes up for this. Guinea fowl on fence Guinea fowl are often kept for their meat, which is regarded as a delicacy. They taste slightly gamey, although milder than pheasant, and a full-grown guinea fowl should just about feed four people. Th
Read more