Rabbit firm targets 1 000 out-growers
ONE of the top local rabbit breeders and meat producers —White Meat Company, plans to double its out-grower scheme to 1 000 members this year and open a restaurant in Victoria Falls with a view to spreading its footprint to Bulawayo.
Over the years, the country’s rabbit-rearing industry has been dormant but it is fast growing now with urban farmers coming into the value chain, which is setting up the sector for expansive and aggressive growth.
A growing number of people are farming the animals for household consumption and on a commercial scale.
Mr Bright Makuchete, the founder of the company, told Business Chronicle recently that rabbit production is proving increasingly attractive to many due to its high profitability and relative simplicity.
“The plan is to support our growers. We want to create a market for them in Victoria Falls and Bulawayo. We have about 500 out-growers countrywide and the target is a minimum of 4 000 over the next three years.”
“There has been a sharp rise in the number of our out-growers. We started in earnest in 2022 but the sharp uptake took place in 2023. We started that year with 130 out-growers and now we are at 500 and it is accelerating. If nothing disturbs us, we expect 1 000 new ones and that is the target for 2024,” he said.
Mr Makuchete farms rabbits and runs a restaurant that sells rabbit meat in Harare.
If done professionally, he said, rabbit farming is very profitable, much more profitable than broiler production for instance.
Rabbit meat is classified as white and is favoured by the health conscious because it is high in protein and low in calories, fat and cholesterol.
“Rabbit farmers are getting a good return on their work,” he said.
“We have been doing it (rabbit farming) for six years now. From birth till market, it costs less than US$3. It is because of the rabbit diet.
“We can get grass or hay cheaply and that is 90 percent of the rabbit diet. In terms of pellets, the composition is 70 percent hay. It actually costs US$2,83 to raise a rabbit.”
A farmer, he added, is paid an average US$7 per rabbit which indicates a return of around US$4 per animal. This, Mr Makuchete added, is a substantially higher return compared to broiler production which gives a farmer a profit of about US$1 per bird.
The White Meat Company contracts farmers to grow specifically the New Zealand White and mixed breed California, it buys them live and slaughters them at their Harare facility.
The breeds normally yield a dressed weight of 1,2kg per animal.
The firm has cast its eyes on the lucrative export market.
“We expect to be exporting in three to four years. We have researched the regional market all the way to Nigeria, they are bothering us but I am patriotic, my dream is, if all systems allow us, we want to see Zimbabwe as the biggest rabbit producer in southern Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. We want the country to be the second after Egypt in Africa,” he said.
However, for the export plan to succeed, Mr Makuchete said, production has to grow exponentially and adhere to international standards in terms of farming the animals and handling them at and post-slaughter.
Apart from providing a market, his firm also helps improve farmers’ skills by running a training programme which offers a range of modules including breed selection, harvesting, butchering, dressing and packaging.
He urged more people to take up rabbit farming.
“Zimbabweans in the diaspora are taking it up in a big way. Zimbabweans at home must not be left behind,” he said.
-chronicle
