A Whole Month of Raising Chickens to Feed Children
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During the month of May, we raised our first 1,000 chickens until they became fully grown and ready for sale. We are supplying chickens to broilers for sale with the overall goal for sustaining the business and utilizing profit to feed more children.
But how does this fight hunger?
Our vision is involves creating employment and economic development in Haiti through sustainable businesses.
What does that exactly mean? There are many organizations that distribute food, clothing, and necessities to families in need in Haiti. We asked the question: What happens afterwards? A huge amount of responsibility is required from the Elevating Chicken Farm's staff, who must also possess a lot of competence and daily attention. By having a staff to run the farm, this allows dozens of jobs to be created that support real families and makes it possible for them to feed their families and achieve economic stability.
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What's the business model?
Just like running business in the states, it's important to understand the underlying business model of our initiatives in Haiti and how they will be both supportive of our larger goals and profitable to run. With the Elevating Chicken Farm, we buy the chicks for about 90 cents each. They are brought to our farm where we raise them in the appropriate conditions where they mature and after 45 days you sell them anywhere between $8-$9 each in American. For perspective, roughly 4 years ago chickens used to be $5 and because of the economy and Haiti the cost of food, the price per chicken has has doubled.
To run the business, the farm requires two main things to run – feed and labor. We're able to add about a thousand chickens a month on $8,000 in income. With these estimates, the Elevating Chicken Farm can generate roughly $2,500 in profit. For our early stage, we have built two coops that will hold a thousand chickens each.
From May 1st through June 15th, we've nearly finished raising 1,000 chickens and are preparing them for the market to sell to Haiti broilers. Next we will buy another 1,000 chickens so that we have new chicks coming in right around the same time we are selling the other ones, So we're always ahead of the game and pre-planning.
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Challenges to expect
This initiative does not go without its challenges. When doing business in Haiti, there are often problems we encounter with sourcing and gathering supplies. Sometimes there may not be feed. Even though we have plan, and then plan again – even after our contingency plan we understand that we are doing this work in Haiti and it will be difficult. But we know our plan will be successful because we have a strong team.
When we asked our co-founder James Cammilleri about what's next for the Elevating Chicken Farm, he said:
"We're looking to continue build [the Elevating Chicken Farm] and grow to upwards of 3,000 or 4,000 chickens every month. For now we'll start. We'll learn. We'll get smarter, and we'll continue."