The Papua New Guinea University of Technology Farm will now supply over 8000 chicken birds monthly to the University Mess as part the University’s insourcing of chicken meat and in the process save over K1 million annually.
The Unitech Farm will now supply 2000 birds weekly to the mess and is part of the university’s plan to use its farm as an agricultural business model for both staff and students for training, research and entrepreneurial skills.
The Farm envisage to supply over 10,000 birds to the university mess, and its other sister colleges – Timber and Forestry College, Bulolo University College, and the Lae Unitech School of Nursing – within the near future.
Farm Manager, Joseph Kimagl revealed that apart from supplying 1000 birds to the University Mess, they had also supplied 35 dressed chickens to the Timber and Forestry College and 70 chicken to the University’s Union Store, and expects these numbers to increase over time.
The Unitech Farm which comes under the Agriculture Department will also import 4,500 layer birds on top of its current 500 to bring the total of layer birds to 5000 to supply over 100 cartons of eggs to the student mess and businesses within Lae city.
To ensure all processing of chicken comply with food safety standards, the Farm and Applied Science Department Food Technology Section will work together to ensure these safety standards are adhered to.
The processing of the first 1000 chickens was witnessed by the university’s senior management team who also were given a tour of the farm’s local feed mill, slaughter house, dressing and packing area, and storage section.
The Vice Chancellor Professor Ora Renagi while congratulating the Agriculture Department stated the University was full of intelligent and knowledgeable people in science and technology, and Unitech has to demonstrate these technologies and science through our products.
“Our country will change through agriculture, and the demonstration at the farm was an aspect that students will be trained on, and such when they go out, they can make use of the resources we have in PNG to increase productivity and economic activities within their rural population,” said Professor Renagi.
"Along the way, we try to change the syllabus to make it more practical, and in that way, we are training our students to be more practical in the real world," said Dr. Macquin Maino, Agriculture Head of Department.
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