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| The Context |
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Who
Targeted at ...
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The technology is aimed primarily at small scale poultry keepers or groups of producers owning or managing an enterprise. Secondarily it is directed to agricultural, livestock and veterinary extension and other advisory personnel (public and private sectors including NGOs). As poultry keeping is a particularly suitable enterprise for women and women's groups advisors in cooperative associations or home economics' advisors should also be part of the overall target group. |
When?
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The tool can be used at all times of the year as poultry production is a continuous activity. |
Where?
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Most areas of the tropics are suitable for poultry production providing sufficient attention is given to local ecoclimatic conditions and due regard is given to housing designed to overcome or mitigate any negative effects associated with the local environment. Areas of high potential and peri-urban areas near to concentrations of human population are a particularly suitable target area. |
| Methods |
Many nonconventional feeds contain antinutritional compounds in the raw state. These include cyanide in cassava, gossypol in cotton seeds and other inhibitors in palm kernel and coconut. The effects are not only on feed intake and digestion by birds but also on product quality (for example gossypol causes discolouration of egg yolks).
Trials have shown that many types of oil seeds can be used in poultry diets provided potential negative affects as discussed above are overcome. For example a small expeller for oilseed developed in the Gambia was able to produce feed for poultry at a cost that was some 20-25 per cent less than a similar product imported from neighbouring Senegal . Ram presses to extract oil can also be used where expellers are not appropriate. Another method of making oilseeds more acceptable is to treat cottonseed meal with ferrous sulphate heptahydrate which cures the yolk discolouration caused by gossypol and returns yolks to the normal colour and thus enhances consumer acceptability.
Various rations can be formulated that are suitable for meat and egg production. These should be simple and make maximum use of low cost local materials. A maximum of five ingredients should be used. Some appropriate ingredients, depending on local availability and cost, include groundnut, sunflower, niger seed, coconut and oil palm products for oil seeds; rice, maize, millet and sorghum for whole cereals or for milling byproducts of these ingredients; root crops including cassava, sweet potato and yam; protein feeds such as meat or fish meal; oystershell or other grit; and possibly a vitamin and or mineral premix (which may well be the most expensive part of the ration in spite of its inclusion as only a small percentage of the total. |
| Resources Required |
Where possible physical equipment (expellers, ram presses, hammer and grinding mills) should be owned by the individual poultry producer or a small cooperative or producer association. An assured supply of basic ingredients for the ration is necessity as poultry are especially susceptible to changes in died or dietary ingredients that result in at least temporarily reduced output. |
| Support |
Some support will normally be required from public and private advisory services in order to ensure the technology is correctly transferred and properly used. The extension personnel themselves will need to be trained in the technology. If cooperative or home economics personnel are also to be included in creating awareness of the use and benefits of the technology they will also need to be included in a training programme. |
| Costs |
Additional financial costs are likely to be relatively substantial in the initial stages for the equipment (and for housing for that equipment) required to ensure "downstream" benefits in reductions in the cost of rations and in more efficient feed conversion. These should rapidly be repaid by less cost feeds and higher outputs of higher quality rations. |
| Benefits |
The direct benefits to the producer are a higher income and a constant income stream. More widely correct employment of the tool should lead to more sustainable livelihoods. Maximum use of local feed resources has beneficial local and global effects as it reduces overall costs to the environment in reducing the number of "food miles" involved between point of production and point of consumption. More assured supplies of high quality poultry products would improve the diets and the quality of life of consumers at a lower cost than the use of costly imports. |
| Risks |
There appear to be few risks associated with the use of the technology provided adequate attention is paid to machinery maintenance and the quality of the feed and the end product. |
| Alternatives |
An alternative to "owner processing" would be to make use of large scale processors on a contract basis in which payment for the processing can be made in cash or in kind (say a proportion of the oil or keeping some of the cake produced after the oil is extracted). The aim should be, however, for home ownership.
The alternative to local production is import of products which is likely to be much more expensive in the long term. |
| Impacts |
Positive and negative impacts have been covered in the preceding sections. |
| Policy Implications |
National, regional and district administrations should include policy options in their development plans that encourage small scale processing and maximum use of local resources. |
| References and Further Reading |
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