Helping smallholders to improve poultry production

Description

Small-scale family poultry farming is practised by a large proportion of smallholder families in the rural and peri-urban areas of most of the world’s developing countries. By enabling improvements in disease control, breeding and genetics, and management and nutrition through smallholder poultry development projects which incorporate a participatory farming approach, value chain assessment and appropriately focused training and extension programmes, such projects have the potential to impact very meaningfully on poverty alleviation, household nutrition and food security, the health and education of children and the empowerment of women as the principal poultry keepers. These outcomes constitute a number of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Table of contents

1 Introduction 2 Types of smallholder poultry production systems 3 Development objectives for family poultry production 4 Preventing disease in poultry 5 Breeding and genetics 6 Husbandry and nutrition 7 Marketing and economics 8 Education and training 9 Strengthening policy environments 10 Case study 1: improving small-scale poultry production in Myanmar 11 Case study 2: contribution of village chickens to diets in Tanzania and Zambia 12 Acknowledgements 13 Future trends 14 Where to look for further information 15 References