This is Sajjad from Pakistan
 2. The contribution of research to the development of family poultry production systems.
I tend to agree with most of what has been expressed by my colleagues from India and Indonesia.
The issue of very little research at Universities and research institutes can be generalized for most of the developing countries where indigenous chickens have played (and are playing) a big role in food security. The development of new breeds of chicken was one of the major research areas in the 60’s here in Pakistan but efforts gradually dwindled as commercial poultry emerged. Lately, things have become better. I myself am trying to incorporate genes like naked neckness into few strains for backyard poultry and so far so good. But issue is that postgraduates doing research on non-commercial chicken are less favoured by the (commercial) poultry related companies, the major employers of such graduates. Doing such research is not a priority area because things are assumed to be available for indigenous chicken (at least) and it is assumed that everything is known as people are keeping them for centuries. Moreover, issue of publishing such research is
 also there. Lack of collaborative research among poultry science / production / breeding / nutrition / veterinary / economics/ social science etc is also a major bottleneck. 
 
I must point out that some of these issues are being taken care of in a regional project ““Development and application of decision support tools to conserve and sustainably use genetic diversity in indigenous livestock and wild relatives” being regionally executed by International Livestock research Institute (ILRI) where apart from Pakistan, Bangladesh, SriLanka and Vietnam are involved and genetic characterization of indigenous chicken is an intended outcome. Some of the activities can be seen at the individual project sites [Pakistan: http://www.fangrpk.org/ ;Bangladesh: http://www.fangrbd.org/ ; Sri Lanka http://www.fangrsl.org/  ;Vietnam http://www.fangrvn.org/] and the main project site [http://www.fangrasia.org/]
 
3. Competing or complementing commercial poultry production systems?
Family poultry is not considered friendly by commercial ventures. They are rather blamed for spreading of diseases. Fact is that vaccines (of all sort whether needed or not) are imported by the commercial companies yet the blame is always on indigenous chicken keepers. And I agree that comparison per say between the contribution of commercial and indigenous poultry is difficult as both have different objectives and their functions are also different. 
A less discussed issue of research on indigenous chicken  indigenous chicken varieties are kept as a sport birds. The cock fighting (major use of some of the indigenous chicken varieties) is considered cruel. But it is more banned because of gambling than probably because of the humane use of cocks. Boxing on the other hand is considered legal and is enjoyed in humans when head is partially protected and hands are protected with gloves. Some other games may also be used as an example. Even bleeding from nose and other parts of face is acceptable. Also, gambling is socially acceptable (at least at law enforcement level) when rich people do gambling on horse racing. Can cock fighting become acceptable in future if we have head gears for cocks?
 
Best Wishes
Sajjad
 
 
Dr. Muhammad Sajjad Khan
Professor
Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics
University of Agriculture Faisalabad
PAKISTAN
Email: [log in to unmask]


________________________________
From: Rajali Yahya <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: Sunday, June 3, 2012 8:24 AM
Subject: Re: Note for the E-Conf. on family poultry


Yes...I am agree with Dr Victor.

Family farming problem is the income problem.
In Indonesia many family farmer and small farmer going bankrupt and collapsed because of price at the harvest time is low sharp fluctuated and uncontrolable. the price is set up by poultry integrator.  Can the family farmer fight the DOC price, feed price, medicine price, and mantaining the price at harvest time?

I think the family farmer should be united perform cooperation business which is has own small scale breeding farm, has a small hatchery unit, has small feed mill, has small scale poultry slaughter houses and small capacity of cold storage. It does not matter weather they take care kampong chicken, broiler chicken, layer chicken and duck.  The united cooperation should able marketing their final product directly to the consumer in the common city, they should able cut a long market chain to be short market chain.  They should has their own freezer truck to send their carcases to super market in the city.

The family farmer united should get continious training how to blend and formulate the feed, how to use cheap local feed material for their poultry, how to take care parent stock in small scale, how to apply hygiene slaughter SOP, how to storage  and deliver carcasses in cold chain technique. 

So the small farmer or family farmer able survive run their family farm with normal and measurable profit.

They (family farmer) can start from the district where the people are has experience in poultry farming but already collapse because of set up price by poultry integrator company.

Thanks and warm regard

Rajali Yahya DVM, MBA
UN - FAO ECTAD
Indonesia



On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 6:36 PM, Olori, Victor <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I would prefer that we do not use this 3rd conference arguing the same old questions of what breed, genetic conservation etc. 
>Family poultry production is an activity with potential to improve economic and health wellbeing of those engaging in it.
>It seems to me that the real question, if we skip  the rhetoric  and window dressing,  is; 
> 
>What do we need to do to raise the profile of family poultry production to achieve the following?
>a)      Increase family income 
>b)      Encourage regular consumption as a source of protein for the family
> 
>In my mind, to achive these, each family producer muct be able to increase their output. I choose the word  ‘output’ rather than ‘productivity’ not to confuse with necessarily higher performance. You can simply increase output by increasing the number birds you have (with current level of performance) or increase performance with current numbers.
> Eitherway, 
>               i.      The family producer needs to increase output  in line with possible level of investment to be profitable.
>              ii.      Each producer needs to be able to distinguish between breeder birds (and their replacemenents)  and finisher birds for consumption or market. This will also allow them have a regular  (dpending on turnover rate)  stock  for the market and hence a regular source of income. 
> 
>Please note that the above has nothing to do with the breed or chicks so using the indigenous breeds as they are will be perfectly okay. Also nothing stopping those who want to invest more from using commercially available hybrids.  Experience has told us that nothing anyone does short of encaging in massive culling of the indigenous breeds will make them go away. If you run the commercial hybrids along with the local, they will either survive  and help increase the variation in the base genetic resource or will be culled by nature.  We can have a strong academeic agurment about this if you like.  
> 
>So unders this context, what do we need to do to increase the output or productivity of the family poultry producer.  What research and development action do we need? 
>I dare say there has been sufficient research conducted to show how much improvement can be achieved if the birds are;
>               i.      Better housed  (prevention of accidents and predation especially of chicks)
>              ii.      Better fed   (supplimentakl feeding )
>            iii.      Medically cared for  (vaccinations etc)
> 
>If not then these are research topics.  These need to be address at individual country /community level as I doubt if the production parameters are constant across all countries where family production take place.   I am also sure that the handbook on family poultry production compiled by Sonaiya et al has addressed some of these questions.
> 
>So what is missing in my mind  is ACTION or a  DEVELOPMENT PLAN  that can be implemented to raise the productivity of family production at community level.
>What agencies/institutions do we need to support and advise family poultry producers at the local level?
>Who will help set up and finance them?
>What will be the mandate of such resource centres? 
>What caliber of personnel is required to achive this  mandate? 
>If we do not have such personnet, how can we go about training them?
> 
> 
>My two penny worth comment
> 
> 
>Dr. Victor E. Olori
>----------------------------
> 
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Forum on family poultry production in developing countries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Datta Rangnekar
>Sent: 31 May 201208:14
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Note for the E-Conf. on family poultry
> 
>Dear participants,
>This is Datta Rangnekar from Ahmadabad, India.
>My compliments to the organizers of this E-conf. as it gives me a good opportunity to express my views based on ‘perceptions developed through interactions, observations and learning’ while working/ interacting with underprivileged and not so underprivileged families in different parts of India (may be relevant to South Asia to some extent). 
>I would like to express observations first on point 2 ‘the development for livelihoods through family poultry — cost and opportunities’ since I feel it provides desired backdrop for discussions on other aspects of the E-Conf.  
> 
>·          ‘Socio-economic importance of family poultry’ needs no emphasis since the ‘traditional backyard family poultry’ (the predecessor of the modern family poultry) is an integral part of livelihood systems of many a social groups of underprivileged families. I realized the strong linkage and importance observing how quickly the families re-stock the birds after these get wiped out due to calamities like floods, earthquake or disease epidemic (I always wished I could study the process for better understanding).  Social factors have a strong bearing on choice of sub-systems and hence family poultry production is more common in rural areas of India with certain social and religious groups.  
>The current approach to development of family poultry does contribute in a small way to ‘Nutritional Security’ (I prefer to use that term rather than food security). The contribution is small since the ‘push is for sale of produce’ in the development schemes. In states where large commercial poultry farms have not come up the contribution of traditional and modern family poultry to poultry production is around 50%.  
>·           However, the current approach to development of family poultry is ‘killing poultry genetic resources’ rather than conserving. The ‘development schemes for family poultry’ provide substantial assistance in form of supply of chicks of new varieties (synthetics or hybrids) developed by Govt. of private units at heavily subsidized rate but there is no support for developing traditional family poultry based on indigenous birds – except for one or two well recognized breeds like Kadaknath from central India.   
> 
>·          The traditional family poultry is one of the most sustainable production systems with hardly any dependence on external sources (including chicks). One of the salient features of the system is that it is one of the few that is ‘producer centered’ in the sense that the ‘producer does not have to approach retailer or consumer for sale but they approach the producer’. While the producer may get lower price for the products but consider saving in drudgery / hassle/ time/energy spent on selling the product and that is used for other livelihood activities (that is how the rural families allocate the limited resource of time and energy).
> 
>·          A look at the prevailing rural livelihood systems would clearly reveal that these are made up of a combination of a number of sub-systems and hence we should not even think of ‘Poultry alone having the capacity of improving livelihoods’ drop this kind of ‘reductionist approach’. The underprivileged / resource poor rural families never depend on one sub-system – it is one of the ‘risk aversion mechanisms’.  
> ·          Organizations involved in rural livelihood development and have understood the systems, would and should not plan for developing only one sub-system but take a ‘holistic approach’. However, some subsystems may be given higher priority compared to others depending on the situation and social factors (there is variation between and within a region).
>·          Regarding the choice between genetic resources, feed, and animal health for highest degree of improvement, at a lower cost – the answer is on the same lines as above – ‘it is not possible to achieve high degree of improvement with a single intervention. I cannot refrain from mentioning that this kind of ‘reductionist approach’ is commonly seen in most of the Govt. development programmes and the results were not encouraging – breeding intervention somehow was the most common/popular choice and ‘breeding became synonymous with developmentand it is high time we depart from this approach/thinking.
> ·          Family poultry development cannot be identified as easier than development of other livestock species.
>·          Family poultry production is ‘low external input system’ and hence less likely to be effected by crunch on resources. 
>·          Meat and eggs – both have equal importance for livelihood.
>·          It is the ‘rapport and credibility of the development organizations’ that would determine degree of risks that producers will take knowingly.
> Best wishes.
>Datta Rangnekar
> 
> 
>
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