Perception of community on improved chicken strains and implications on conservation of local chickens

A Dissertation 2019

The perception of farmers towards any innovation can be influenced by many factors including level of education, location, livelihood activity, gender, and age. This study was conducted in Morogoro and Singida regions, Tanzania where improved chickens were introduced by the African Chicken Genetic Gain (ACGG) project. In this study, four villages from Ifaraka town, Morogoro region (Kibaoni, Kikwawila, Lipangalala and Lumemo villages) and four villages from Iramba district, Singida region (Mampanta, Kinambeu, Idodyandole and Heka villages) were purposely selected as beneficiaries of ACGG project. In these villages, two strains of tropically improved strains (Sasso and Kuroiler) were issued for testing performance under a moderate input farmer-managed production system. A total of 120 respondents were purposely selected for interviews based on their engagement in the chicken value chain either as a primary producer, consumer, or traders. The study involved 20 ACGG households, 20 none-ACGG households, 12 Consumers and 8 chicken traders from each region. For intervened households, each farmer was given 25 pre-brooded and vaccinated birds of either Sasso or Kuroiler. The survey questionnaire was pretested and necessary adjustments made before conducting the survey. For these reasons, the study was carried out in the two regions of Tanzania to obtain the extent to which the improved chicken strains will be preferred and to explain the implications to the local chicken conservation. The study involved collecting data through field survey and Focus Group Discussions (FGD), with each participants ranging from 5 to 10 individuals. The information collected through a single visit formal survey to obtain the perception of communities on improved versus local chicken strains concerning productivity, adaptability, and local chicken biodiversity maintenance, breeding objectives and trait preferences of the chicken keepers. In the case of the breeding objectives and trait preferences of the chicken keepers, a Non-parametric test was used to generate descriptive statistics, while, content analysis was used for information gathered during FGDs. The generated mean ranks were assessed using Kendall’s Coefficient of concordance (W) to test for the agreement of the ranking between the respondents on the data obtained. The descriptive statistics including frequencies, means, and standard deviations were used to explain the perception of the respondents. Besides, a multiple regression analysis was performed to find out the relationship between dependent and independent variables explaining the perception of communities. Furthermore, a Likert scale was used to gauge the perception of respondents. The results indicated that both local and improved chickens were mainly kept for revenue (1.28) and home consumption (1.84) from both regions. There was little variability in a ranking of the trait preferences by the chicken producers from individual respondents as well as from focus group discussions. Local chickens were preferred due to their higher adaptability (2.00) and brooding behavior (2.13), while egg production (1.45) and meat yields (1.80) were the major traits preferred for the households rearing improved chicken in both regions. The findings underscored breeding objectives and trait preferences as crucial for the development of holistic and sustainable genetic improvement of local and improved chickens in rural areas. The average number of flock sizes were found to be 13.46±11.255 and 20.84±11.245 chicken per household for the improved and local chicken strains respectively. During FGDs respondents reported that the management cost of improved chicken strains was higher than that of the local strains although the former had better performance hence farmers, were ready to increase the flock. More than 50% of the respondents reported that the adaptability of local strain was better than that of the improved strains. More than 80% of the respondents reported that productivity in terms of eggs and meat yield of improved chicken strains is higher than that of local chicken strains. More than 60% of the respondents did not see if the introduction of improved chicken strains will lead to the erosion of local chicken strains. Measured at breed level, the desire to increase the number of improved chickens was significant at (p<0.05). Hence, most of the respondents (56.8%) and during FGDs wanted to increase the number of improved chicken because of the better performance and high prices offered at the markets. Generally, this study concluded that adaptation and reproductive traits seem to be the most important attributes of local chicken, while the production traits, including the number of eggs and meat yield, are considered to be more relevant for those keeping improved chicken strains. For sustainability and economic empowerment of rural farmers, breeding objectives should take into account the breeding goals and preferences of farmers, traders, and consumers. Also, farmers need to change to make improvements from the traditional poultry-keeping system through the adoption of improved systems and or acquiring new highly productive and adaptive strains for farmers to realize profits. Respondents were not worried about endangering the local chicken biodiversity if the improved chicken strains will be highly distributed. Some respondents underscored that local chickens will still be kept by most of the farmers due to their important characteristics including brooding behavior, tolerance to diseases and stress hence, an opportunity for up-scaling.