Saudi poultry farmers call for government support

Investors in the Saudi Arabian poultry sector are reaching out to government agencies to urgently intervene to help small and medium investors set up and continue with their farming businesses.

Investors in the country are facing many obstacles, including lack of land and support in marketing their products at local markets, local media reports.

Faisal Al-Gufaidi, head of the Cooperative Society for Poultry Producers in Makkah, confirmed that the lack of arable lands for poultry projects compounds old and new investors noting that bureaucracy and duplicity of offices in issuing licenses were the reasons for the discouragement of investors and their final exit from the sector.

“The members of the society hope to have a slaughterhouse for small investors in the Makkah Region who account for 40% of the total investors in the region,” he said. When deprived of the chance to have their products distributed in big stores and hypermarkets, the small investors were forced to sell their products to the bigger investors, he added.

On the other hand, Muhammad Al-Zahrani, an investor in the poultry farm installation sector said that investments in small and medium farms have recently declined. “Many of them have preferred to invest in neighboring countries to escape bureaucratic complications and their inability to compete with mega companies,” he said.

Source: Arab News