Marketing of free range local chickens in Dar Es Salaam City: Some implications for Rural Extension Services in Tanzania

Improving the Health and Productivity of Rural Chickens in Africa (IHEPRUCA) Project

This study was conducted from 29th April, 2003 to 6th May, 2003 with the main aim of of the study was to investigate the marketing strategies and the income that village buyers and the urban middle-persons earned from the free-range local chicken (FRLCs), i.e. the latter bought FRLCs in the rural villages and the former sold them in the city of Dar es Salaam. The study interviewed 160 respondents involved in the marketing of FRLC, and of these, 88 were village buyers and 72 were middle-persons. The village buyers went out in the rural areas, bought FRLCs and transported them to Dar es Salaam city and sold chicken to the middle-persons who in turn sold them to urban consumers. To cover the 13 markets scattered in the three Districts (Kinondoni, Ilala, Temeke) in the region of Dar es Salaam, three trained enumerators were temporarily employed to interview village buyers and urban middle-persons using a pre-tested and validated questionnaires. The study found that most the people involved in the FRLCs business were younger (30 to 45 years of age) and over 90 percent were males. Tuesdays and Thursdays were the days when most of the FRLCs were brought in from the up-country destinations. Most of the FRLCs sold in 13 markets in the city of Dar es Salaam originated from Dodoma and Singida regions—further proving earlier proof that these two regions produced the most FRLCs sold in the city. Most of the FRLCs were transported on trains and that the tenga was the most common container used for transporting chicken to the markets. Cocks were priced highly than hens, and that August, September and October FRLCs fetched high prices. Respondents showed that most of the FRLCs showed disease symptoms in September. The urban middle-persons earned more profits from selling FRLCs than did the village buyers. There are a number of implications for rural extension services that emanate from this study that could improve the husbandry of FRLCs, hence, contributing to household income and poverty alleviation in rural areas. Furthermore, the findings of this study have demonstrated the enormous potential of FRLCs a resource that few have tapped leaving out the smallholder to get a pittance. Therefore, this study makes recommendations at six levels of operation: the extension officers, the researchers, the village buyers and urban middle-persons, the NGOs and the Government.