Technical Efficiency of Traditional Village Chicken Production in Africa: Entry Points for Sustainable Transformation and Improved Livelihood

Abstract

Increasing poultry product consumption trends have attracted researchers and development practitioners to look for interventions that transform the low-input low-output-based village chicken production to a high yielding production system. However, due to the intricate nature of the production system, there is a dearth of evidence that helps design comprehensive interventions at the smallholder level. Using national-level representative data collected from 3555 village chicken producers in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania, this study examines the technical efficiency of village chicken production and investigates the main factors that explain the level of inefficiency. We applied a stochastic frontier analysis to simultaneously quantify the level of technical efficiency and identify factors associated with heterogeneity in inefficiency. We found that the level of technical efficiency is extremely low in the three countries, suggesting enormous opportunities to enhance productivity using available resources. The heterogeneity in technical efficiency is strongly associated with producers’ experience in breed improvements and flock management, limited technical knowledge and skills, limited access to institutions and markets, smaller flock size, gender disparities, and household livelihood orientation. We argue the need to adopt an integrated approach to enhance village producers’ productivity and transform the traditional subsistence-based production system into a commercially oriented semi-intensive production system.

Impact of COVID-19 on Smallholder Poultry Farmers in Nigeria

“…This occurred more with male respondents (88.3%) than with females (19.7%), and the majority of these female respondents resided in Rivers (24) and Imo (18) states. This agrees with previous reports that there are fewer female-headed smallholder poultry households in Nigeria, with Rivers State having a significant proportion of these households compared to the other states [21,36]. The implication of this disparity with respect to women's empowerment, gender roles (chicken ownership, decision making), and production efficiency within households needs to be further investigated in a post-COVID-19 era.…”

Impact of cooperative membership on production efficiency of smallholder goat farmers in Nepal

“…There is a negative and statistically significant association between technical inefficiency and training received by farmers on goat production and management. A similar finding is reported by O' Leary et al (2018) for dairy and by Birhanu et al (2021) for poultry, where farmers with more training got higher profits with more training (O'Leary et al, 2018). Since training on production and management of goats are the skill-generating factors, the inefficiency decreases with training.…”

“…(2018) for dairy and by Birhanu et al. (2021) for poultry, where farmers with more training got higher profits with more training (O'Leary et al., 2018). Since training on production and management of goats are the skill‐generating factors, the inefficiency decreases with training.…”

Species and Phenotypic Distribution Models Reveal Population Differentiation in Ethiopian Indigenous Chickens

“…Ecological variables vary in terms of their influences on organisms as inducers of local adaptation. Knowledge of ecological factors responsible for adaptive variation should be the first step to design selective breeding programs on indigenous livestock, plan crossbreeding with improved genotypes, or introduce new genotypes from a different environment (Fleming et al, 2017;Bettridge et al, 2018;Birhanu et al, 2021;Gheyas et al, 2021).…”

“…A starting point in genetic improvement of the existing local chicken populations or in considering the introduction of new genotypes is to understand how the environment is driving local adaptation (Bettridge et al, 2018). This knowledge would allow breeding of indigenous ecotypes that are more productive under village conditions while retaining locally acceptable morphological and adaptive traits (Dana et al, 2010;Muchadeyi and Dzomba, 2017;Birhanu et al, 2021).…”