R200M FEED MILL WILL BOOST AGRO-PROCESSING SECTOR - DG OCTOBER

R200M FEED MILL WILL BOOST AGRO-PROCESSING SECTOR   - DG OCTOBER

 By BRIAN KAJENGO

The Director-General of the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti), Mr Lionel October says the state-of-the-art R200m chicken feed mill that he officially opened in Standerton, Mpumalanga yesterday will go a long way in boosting the agriculture and agro-processing sectors in South Africa.

The 40 000 ton per month feed mill, which funded by the dti to the tune of R28m through its Manufacturing Investment Programme, is owned by Astral Foods. Astral is South Africa’s largest producer of chicks in South Africa and the second largest in terms of the chicken processed.

“the dti expresses its gratitude to the leadership of Astral Foods for undertaking such as major investment. It takes brave and visionary businesspeople that endowed with exceptional business acumen to decide to invest such amounts of money in an industry that is facing various challenges.  The country needs more business leaders of your calibre who are prepared to take South Africa forward,” said October.

He identified massive imports and cost increases as some of the challenges that are facing the poultry industry.

“the dti is firmly behind initiatives like this as part of our Industrial Policy Action Plan designed to boost the productive sectors of our economy such as agriculture, agro-processing and manufacturing. In this way local production of goods enhanced.  That is the reason why the dti has invested over R1.2bn in the agro-processing sector over the past five years. We regard agro-processing as an important sector in achieving the objectives of government to create one millions jobs in agriculture by 2019,” added October.

The Director of Business Development at Astral Foods, Mr Gary Arnold said the new feed mill was located in Standerton due to the close proximity to the poultry farms operated by Astral in the region. The town is also in the centre of the maize and soya growing region.

“The new mill makes use of the latest technology and is more energy efficient compared to the older feed mills in South Africa. It will reduce the cost of producing poultry feed due to the lower labour requirements and efficient cost production,” added Arnold.