Description

Abstract: Backyard poultry enterprise is one of the enterprise development interventions for the Enhancing Child Nutrition through Animal Source food Management (ENAM) project designed to address the effects of poverty on household food security and child nutrition in Ghana. The value chain approach was used to examine how the involvement of different actors, activities of actors and relationships between actors, including value chain support services, affects its performance and how these can be improved. Qualitative data were collected via group and individual interviews with community key informants, backyard chicken farmers, backyard chicken farm input dealers, backyard chicken farm product dealers, backyard poultry farm product consumers, traditional community leaders and extension service providers. A total of 80 respondents were interviewed and findings revealed the existence of a significant market for indigenous backyard chicken. However, constraints such as diseases, poor market organization, low level of cooperation among producers, and limited levels of support services to the industry were preventing the industry from seizing that opportunity. Team members also identified the opportunities that exist to strengthen the weak links precipitated by the constraints along the backyard poultry value chain. Recommendations for the appropriate organization of the ENAM project intensive backyard poultry egg production to ensure high performance and sustainability in the Techiman area are provided. In many cases, government intervention, assistance and regulation is necessary. For example, if the control of Newcastle disease, a major challenge to the enterprise, can become a free public good, a very challenging obstacle to the viability of backyard poultry production can be removed.