FORWARD OPERATING BASE WARRIOR, KIRKUK, Iraq— Raising chickens has been a traditional occupation in Iraq for generations, but since 2003, the chicken farming business has been difficult in the Kirkuk province of northern Iraq.
To help local chicken farmers expand or revive their operations, the Kirkuk Provincial Reconstruction Team secured and delivered equipment and supplies for the feeding, heating and cooling of chickens and chicken houses to farmers near the city of Kirkuk, June 29.
The farmers belong to a cooperative aimed at creating an "integrated poultry operation" to improve the production of local feed, the rearing of chicks from local hatchers, and the sale of live and slaughtered chickens to the local community.
Many farmers stopped working after the war began because they needed equipment that they couldn't get, said Dr. Saad Aziz Yaseem, who helped find the local farmers who received the new equipment.
Some of the farmers who received equipment already had operational chicken farms, but many were just beginning.
"A lot of the farmers were unemployed or underemployed," said Burdin Hickok, the economic development section chief for the PRT. "The idea is to get them back to work...to increase the home-grown poultry industry."
"We gave them what they needed to be operational," he continued.
The equipment will help the [chicken farmers] be more competitive in the market and will assist farmers to rebuild the local poultry industry, said Hickok.
Ali Hama Rash, a chicken farmer who currently owns some 6,200 chickens, believes that the equipment will help move his farm into the modern era.
"This equipment will allow me to work better, more efficiently," said Rash.
According to him, many of the farmers in the area are still using very old techniques on their farms. This new equipment will allow them to increase production and lessen their work load.
"Chicken is one of our main meals," he said. "It is very important that we can raise our own chickens here."