Rabbit meat market is growing in Uganda and abroad every day, but the challenge is most rabbit farmers focus on the market for live animals.
“In rabbit meat market, consumers are not interested in seeing a live animal. Yes, they need to know whether it is rabbit or chicken but not a live animal,” explains Dr Beatrice Luzobe, a rabbitry farmer at Kisaasi, Kawempe municipality, Kampala.
Dr Luzobe is an extension service worker with over 30 years of specialising in livestock under the Uganda Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services.
She says they selected rabbitry as one of the unique, but potential enterprises to develop communities.
“We aim at providing highquality rabbit meat on the local market in and around Kampala,” she explains. Don’t miss golden tips on rabbit farming.
Marketing
Luzobe says rabbits have a huge market in Uganda since many people are shifting from eating red to white meat that can be got from rabbits and chicken. In East Africa, currently Kenya consumes more rabbit meat and the demand for rabbit meat is high.
She adds that with the increasing demand for white meat across the globe, therefore, there are more export opportunities for the rabbit meat by Ugandan farmers.
“Some rabbit farmers start their enterprises aiming at selling breeding stock, but what will happen when everyone has stock. Yet, for a meat producer, every day consumers eat,” she says.
The training will focus on how to make a rabbit weigh 2kg in four months and also how to add value and have attractive products for the consumers.
Rabbitry is not a get-rich-quick business. It is just like other businesses that one must invest in and take time to make it stabilise.
