Economic Potential Of Newly Introduced Chicken Strains At Farm Level In Selected Areas Of Tanzania

EXTENDED ABSTRACT

In Tanzania, local chicken farming is an integral part of the rural economy with a high potential for poverty reduction and enhancing food security. However, despite its contributions to household economy and food security, local chicken productivity remains low because of low genetic potential, diseases and poor feeding. One of the options to increase local chicken production and productivity is the adoption of the chicken strains with high genetic potential. In that respect, African Chicken Genetic Gains project introduced Sasso and Kuroiler chicken strains for on-farm testing to evaluate their economic potential in different agro-ecological zones. The study attempted to contribute towards the knowledge base regarding the possibility of increasing chicken production and productivity for enhancing income of smallholder farmers in the country. This study adopted developmental research design whereby 202 farmers in 12 sites in three regions of Tanzania were involved. Farmers were earlier on provided with 6 six-week old chicks which had been vaccinated against Mareks, Newcastle, Infectious Bronchitis and fowl pox. The study was conducted in Dodoma, Morogoro and Njombe regions which differed agroecologically. Data used were obtained through weekly farmers’ and extension officers’ records, survey, secondary data, simulation exercises, interviews, focus group discussions and observations. The study applied a Farm Simulation Model; FARMSIM and Stochastic Efficiency with Respect to Function to establish economic viability of these strains relative to the local chickens. Second, it used an Adoption and Diffusion Outcome Prediction Tool to predict the potential rate of adoption of introduced chicken strains and contributing factors. Further, Stochastic Data Envelopment Analysis was used to determine technical, allocative and economic efficiencies of keeping introduced strains among selected farmers. Lastly, multivariate multiple regression model in the Just and Pope framework was applied to investigate the effect of controllable inputs on production and variability. The results iii indicate that keeping Sasso strain was the most economically viable business with the highest Net Present Value, Net Cash Farm Income and the highest probability of attaining economic return. Kuroiler was the second, followed by keeping local chickens without supplementation. Keeping local chickens with supplementations was the least economically viable enterprise. However, inclusion of risk behaviour of the farmers revealed that extremely risk-averse farmers preferred mostly keeping local chickens without supplementations whereas, extremely risk loving farmers preferred Sasso strain the most. The extremely risk-averse farmers would need to receive about TZS 388 620.0 and TZS 297 180.0 to be indifferent between keeping about 60 Sasso strain and Kuroiler strain respectively and local chickens without supplement. The results also indicate that the peak for adoption is likely to be 34, 29 and 38% after 8, 7 and 9 years in Bahi, Ifakara and Wanging’ombe sites respectively. The sensitivity analysis results indicate that, the adoption rate may increase up to 59, 49 and 57% and may decline to about 17, 16 and 21% in Bahi, Ifakara and Wanging’ombe respectively. Results show that there is significant inefficiency in both the Sasso and Kuroiler chicken keeping households. Further, farmers were technically, allocatively and economically inefficient with mean indices of 19.9%, 68.8% and 12.9% respectively. The likely cause of being inefficient was due under utilization of key input factors with exceptional to maize bran. Furthermore, the results indicate that there was production variability attributable to input factors. However, there was inconsistent effect since some inputs were both variability increasing and reducing; that is, reducing in production of birds but increasing in egg production for the same strain and vice versa. It is likely that the full potential of these strains requires inputs in a standardised form for reduced performance variability. The study recommends promotion and scaling up of these strains for improving the livelihood of smallholder farmers and increasing the sector’s contribution to country’s Gross Domestic Product. Moreover, the scaling up must be integrated with education on technical knowledge on good farming practices, feed iv formulations, biosecurity and shelter for improved productivity and reduced variability. It is important to strengthen market integration for both inputs and outputs for improving economic efficiency and profit maximization. Lastly, further study has to be set for determining the farm level input mix with minimum effect on output variability.