A R50-MILLION chicken hatchery and processing plant, which will meet all consumer demands in the Buffalo City area is being planned. The project, which would involve the full cycle of chicken farming - hatching, broiler growing and processing - would create 500 new jobs, according to the Daily Dispatch newspaper. A business plan by the Southern Horison group has been submitted to the Ferrostaal industrial group. Southern Horison has also applied for financing from the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and the Land Bank. The group has already secured the rights to lease the land from the Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC) at Bridle Drift in Mdantsane, on which there is an existing abattoir and 10 poultry growing houses which can accommodate 200 000 birds. Southern Horison was formed after the amalgamation of Tony Isemonger's Anca Farm Fresh Chickens in Stutterheim, poultry management and project consultant Tom Warren's Chickrite Farms and Southern Horison's Elliott Makoena. Warren, at the request of the ECDC, last year did a feasibility study for Ferrostaal project manager Max von Hippel, after the group showed interest in a chicken production facility in East London. Warren said Ferrostaal had previously built two chicken abattoirs in Egypt. "A Ferrostaal delegation visited Mdantsane to inspect the existing abattoir. It was intended to be an export project but was shelved because of the weak European market at the time," said Warren. Von Hippel has since submitted Southern Horison's business plan to the group's overseas head office. Isemonger also made contact with another of the arms deal contractors, British AeroSpace and Saab, after being told that the group was also looking at investing in the Eastern Cape. Southern Horison has, however, also applied to the IDC to finance the equipment and to the Land Bank to finance the purchase of two disused chicken farms. Isemonger says 1.2 million chickens a week are consumed in the Eastern Cape. The province produces 450 000 chickens per week. In the greater East London area 70 000 chickens are produced per week, while 250 000 are consumed. "If established, the project would greatly increase production levels and curtail imports from other provinces," says Isemonger. The project will include a breeding project for East London. Fertile hatching eggs are currently being shipped in from elsewhere. Warren said a R50-million investment would fund production targets of 250 000 chickens a week, which would increase the province's production to 700 000 chickens a week. Makoena says Southern Horison has also informed the ECDC that the project would benefit local agricultural activities, including soya bean, maize and sunflower growing. Small-scale poultry farmers would be encouraged to produce chickens for Southern Horison's label under contract.