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Around December 2021, I had a client who I was helping with record-keeping. She’s a poultry farmer, and what I found striking about her operations is that she was renting her poultry houses. Initially, I thought renting a poultry farm was a terrible idea, but upon careful reflection, I realized there was more to this than meets the eye. So I urge you to keep reading and have an open mind while I discuss the merits and demerits of renting a poultry farm.
The farmer in question at the time had around 1,600 layers. The birds were kept in 5 separate pens. The amount she was paying for rent each month for each poultry pen was GH₵ 100.00. Meaning she was paying GH₵ 500 in total every month as rent.
Now, let’s analyze this. If you were to start a layer farm of around 1600 layers in December 2021, you probably had to spend GH₵ 15,000 (could even be more depending on your location) to acquire land and at least GH₵ 48,000 for the poultry housing.
In total, a new farmer wanting to start raising this number of birds had to splash at least GH₵ 63,000.00 on land and housing alone (for the deep litter system of farming). We’ve not yet spoken about feed, labour, vaccines, etc.
So this begs the question: “Is renting a poultry farm a good idea?” Well, it depends. Because from the example above, spending GH₵ 500.00 monthly means it would take 126 months (10.5 years) for the monthly rent to accumulate to GH₵ 63,000.00.
To put things into perspective, if you were to start a poultry farm around that period and decided to put up your own structure, you were required to cough up an amount someone else had to pay in instalments for 10 years. However, you must note that your landlord may raise rent prices every year. Hence monthly rent may instead take 7 years and 6 months to accumulate to GH₵ 63,000.00, assuming monthly rent increases by 10% after every year. Therefore, you can clearly see that in this case, it is a good idea to rent a poultry farm.
However, what if after one year of renting the farm, the landlord decides he doesn’t want you as a tenant anymore? This can put you in a sticky situation, because you may need at least two years for your farm to be reasonably profitable. And if after one year and your rental contract or lease isn’t renewed, you may have to move all your birds out. From this perspective, it makes sense to get your own land and poultry housing to avoid unnecessary inconvenience.
It is important to understand that the need to purchase land and build poultry houses are some of the major contributing factors to why poultry farming is an extremely capital-intensive venture. Maybe, if you don’t have too much capital to start a poultry farm, you may consider renting one, as that may help reduce your startup costs. Also, make sure you and your landlord sign an agreement that would give you the option to extend your lease for another year to prevent you from being kicked out.
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Pkom 