The graduate fellowship placement will be within the Africa RISING ‘Transforming Key Production Systems: Maize Mixed East and Southern Africa’. Under the sub-project: Value chain analysis of grain legumes in eastern and southern Africa: Improving productivity of indigenous chicken through better nutrition and management in mixed crop-livestock farming systems, which is a collaborative effort between International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).

This fellowship focuses on the role of indigenous poultry in integrated farming systems in Babati district. Indigenous poultry production is an integral part of a balanced farming system and has a unique position in the rural household economy, supplying high quality protein to the family. Indigenous poultry has potential to convert locally available feed resources that consists of household waste, edible materials found in the immediate environment and waste grain supplements provided by the women into eggs and meat. Income from indigenous poultry forms an effective means of transferring wealth from the high-income urban consumers to the poor rural and peri-urban members of the community hence contributing to the focus of livestock and fish CRP of providing meat and milk for and by the poor. However, village poultry production is faced with many problems including poor feeds, high mortality rates due to lack of vaccination and disease control measures and a need for more knowledge on these topics. The overall objective of the student project is to develop integrated feeding and management strategies that would help to increase the overall productivity of rural poultry production in Babati district of Tanzania.

Responsibilities:

∙To identify value chain actors, characterize and quantify different poultry production and management systems of Babati district.

∙To identify, characterise and quantify different and potential scavenging feed resources and study the constraints to the availability of these feed resources for rural poultry in the free range system of Babati district.

∙To formulate and test poultry feed rations based on nutritional requirements of indigenous chickens and study the effects of supplementation with these rations on growth and egg production in the free-range systems of Babati district.

More information.

Deadline: February 24, 2014