An assessment of socio-economic features of village chicken farmers in Ethiopia

Abstract

The aims of the study were to characterize the socio-economic features of village chicken producers, types of
chicken production systems, flock management practices, family task sharing and production constraints in
lowland, midland and highland of Ethiopia. Data were collected at 360 rural households of which 120 were from
lowland, 160 midland and 80 highlands. A standardized questionnaire was used to collect the data using person
to person interview method. The extensive chicken management system was predominant in all of the three agroclimatic zones. Most of the studied parameters were different (P<0.01) across agro-climatic zones. Based on the
whole data set, 77.9% of the households practiced an extensive form of chicken management system. However,
the proportion was much higher (90%) in lowlands. From the visited 360 poultry farms, 96% of them had native
chicken breeds, 3% had exotic chicken breeds and the remaining 1% had crossbreds. Chicken ownership was
pre dominated by rural women than men in all of the three agro-ecological zones. Regarding family task sharing
in rural poultry production systems, women were responsible for 47.9 to 77.6% of farm activities. The major
production constraints and/or problems were the lack of high performing chicken breeds and disease occurrence
during the period in which this study was carried out. Newcastle disease was the most prevalent health problem
at 61% of the visited farms and it was highly important in all of the three agro-ecological zones. Our findings will
support agro-ecology based interventions for improving village chicken management systems and enhance their
economic contributions to the farmers.