Mikolongwe chicken faces extinction
Established in the 1950s, Mikolongwe Farm is known for producing Black Australorp chickens nicknamed Mikolongwe.
However, the farm has had no chicken since January 2022 as Nation on Sunday writes. It is not clear if the farm will be back to its feet anytime soon.
Located in Chiradzulu District, the farm covers roughly 3 000 hectares.
People we contacted from Mikolongwe referred us to Agriculture Minister Sam Kawale who in turn referred us to a Facebook post of January 17 this year.
However, Kawale could not explain further.
Sources we spoke to from Mikolongwe said the farm lost all chickens in January 2022 after they suffered a salmonella infection; a common bacterial disease that affects the intestinal tract.
They were euthanised in order to wipe out salmonella and over 4000 Black Australorp chickens were slaughtered and burned to clear the infection.
The plan was to restock within the year, but that never happened until March 12, 2023 when Cyclone Freddy damaged structures at Mikolongwe including chicken houses.
“Bringing back Mikolongwe will not be easy work. It requires huge sums of money as we need to start constructing kraals and acquiring equipment which was damaged due to floods.
“Since last year we have been promised that we will get funding to bring it back but nothing has been done so far,” said the source.
Currently, the farm is only keeping cattle, goats and a few sheep and pigs.
But Kawale’s Facebook post suggested that the only way to revive the farm is to be in partnership.
He said his ministry is in discussion with Malawi University of Science and Technology (Must) to help run Mikolongwe Farm in Chiradzulu.
“This partnership seeks to restore the lost glory at the farm, and make it more productive than ever. To achieve this goal, Must has been developing various technologies that will be used at the farm, and across the country, to support the development of crops and livestock production, and value addition. “I was privileged to see some of the technologies. Another exciting thing I heard was the funding from Mastercard to help the university in its agriculture programmes. Apart from investments at Mikolongwe Farm, Must is also building an industrial park on its campus where value-addition factories will be housed,” reads the post in part
