Government says it has started issuing licenses to poultry farmers aiming at differentiating those that are permitted to conduct wholesale and littering poultry business.   

According to Minister of Trade Sosten Gwengwe, government has arrived at the licensing procedure following outcry from small-scale poultry farmers who have been complaining about monopolistic approach by big poultry companies.

“What we would want to differentiate those that are allowed to do businesses by wholesale and those that are allowed to do businesses by littering.

“So we are issuing various kinds of licenses, the travelling licenses is for the bigger producers to allow them move their live poultry to designated places where they can offload to their distributors or at least designated places where people will be buying from them at a wholesale price,” said Gwengwe.

He added that once the license issuing period elapses, law enforces will commence monitoring to ensure compliance.

“We will be engaging our colleagues in the Malawi Police Service to start checking the compliance on this things because we don’t want say things on the paper when in fact what obtained on the ground is different.

“So we planned that after the licensing grace period is over then the police will come in stopping these vans and checking if they have got requisite license to be able to move around with live poultry,” he said.

According to Gwengwe, all those who will be moving live poultry in small van in the country`s locations will be giving distributors license which is restricted to small local producers who can be small farmers or those that are in vending and small in nature.