Constraints facing poultry producers in Iraq

Abstract

There is a decrease in poultry production in Iraq. The study was conducted in Babylon Province, Iraq; to identify constraints facing broiler producers. One hundred poultry producers were randomly selected. A list of 4 of constraints facing poultry producers: production, financial, marketing and institutional, covering 24 constraints was prepared. More than half of poultry producers indicated there was a high level of constraint facing them. Production, financial, and marketing constraints had high effect on producers. High cost of feed, competition from imported birds, price fluctuation, high cost of energy, inappropriate environmental conditions, continuous outage of electricity, high cost of drug and vaccines, high mortality rate, competition of birds from other province, lack of quality day old chicks from local hatcheries, lake of capital, poor extension service, production halls not utilized at full operating capacity, lack of quality feeds, and disease attack were the most severe constraints. Negative significant relationships exist between years of experience in poultry production, number of chicken sets/ year, training attendance and overall constraint score. There were differences between constraints severity depending on years of experience, number of chicken sets/ year, and training attendance. Challenges facing poultry producers can be addressed through active extension services. 91 MethodologyThe study was carried out in Babylon province, center-south of Iraq, which is located between 32° and 33.25° North latitude and 44°to 45° East longitude. There are 273 productive poultry projects in the province as at 2016, with the province coming second in term of number of broiler projects and third in terms of amount of meat produced (Central Statistical Organization Iraq, 2017). The population for this study consisted of 273 owners of poultry farms, 13 were chosen for testing reliability of the questionnaire, one hundred poultry farms were selected randomly from the remaining 260 to provide data from 1-15 July 2018.The instrument used was a 2-part questionnaire. The first part included the socio-economic characteristics: years of experience in poultry production, number of productive halls, number of chickens set/ year, number of chicken/set and training attendance. The second part listed 24 constraints faced by poultry producers grouped into the categories: production constraints (10), financial (7), marketing (4), and institutional (3).Content validity of the questionnaire was established by a panel of experts in the field of agricultural extension and poultry production. A pilot study was conducted to establish reliability of the instrument, a Cronbach's alpha (a reliability coefficient) of 0.93 was established, indicating the instrument used was reliable and valid. Constraints were measured on a 5-point continuum scale as very high constraint (VH) (4), high (H) (3), moderate (M) (2), less (L) (1) and not a constraint (NT) (0). In relation to their level of vulnerability, in all-over constraints, each re...

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