CluckCore Integrated Poultry Group — Contract-Farming Programme
The contract-farming programme structure and the farmer-network economics underpinning CluckCore's supply.
Section 15 · Business Plan
Contract-Farming Programme
The contract-farming programme structure and the farmer-network economics underpinning CluckCore’s supply.
The contract-farming network is simultaneously CluckCore’s supply
engine, its developmental impact, and its route to concessional capital.
Growing from 40 to 1,200 contract farmers over the
plan, it converts fragmented smallholder production into reliable,
food-safe abattoir throughput while giving emerging farmers guaranteed
offtake and technical support.
Programme structure
| Element | CluckCore provides | Farmer provides |
|---|---|---|
| Day-old chicks & feed | Sourced/financed via farmer-support advances | Grow-out labour & housing |
| Technical support | Veterinary, biosecurity & husbandry extension | Adherence to protocols |
| Guaranteed offtake | Contracted purchase at agreed formula price | Consistent, compliant birds |
| Working capital | Input advances recovered at delivery | On-farm operational management |
| Market access | Formal-market route via CluckCore abattoir | Grow-out to specification |
Farmer network economics
| Metric | FY2027 | FY2028 | FY2029 | FY2030 | FY2031 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contract farmers | 40 | 120 | 300 | 650 | 1 200 |
| Farmer-support advances (Rm) | 4 | 11 | 27 | 59 | 108 |
| Avg advance per farmer (R’000) | 90 | 90 | 90 | 90 | 90 |
The advances are a revolving working-capital investment, not a grant:
inputs are financed at planting and recovered on delivery, so the R108
million advanced by FY2031 is an asset that turns with each grow-out
cycle. The programme’s genius is that it aligns the
developmental and commercial objectives perfectly, every farmer
supported is both a social outcome and a unit of secured supply, which
is exactly why the IDC, DBSA and impact investors will co-fund it. It is
also the plan’s answer to supply security: a diversified base of 1,200
growers is far more resilient to a localised disease outbreak than a
handful of large own-farms.
The contract-farming programme carries its own risks that diligence
should probe: advances to emerging farmers involve credit risk
(crop/flock failure, side-selling), and technical-support capacity must
scale with the network or bird quality and biosecurity slip. The plan
mitigates these through input-in-kind advances (recovered at delivery
rather than cash lent), embedded extension officers, and staged network
growth tied to CluckCore’s own support capacity, but a 30-fold increase
in farmer numbers is an ambitious developmental undertaking in its own
right, and its execution is a genuine variable in the supply
forecast.
Confidential — this business plan is provided to prospective investors and lenders for evaluation purposes only and may not be reproduced or distributed without the written consent of CluckCore Integrated Poultry Group (Pty) Ltd.