Abstract

This study aimed to characterize the village poultry production systems and to investigate the opportunities for its improvement in Burkina Faso. The study was carried out in 75 villages located in 8 regions involving 750 households. Data were collected by individual interviews and surveys supported with structured questionnaires.

Data relative to the rural poultry farmers profile indicated that 78.93% were men and 81.87% adults. They also revealed a high illiteracy rate (66.80%) as well as a high number of farmers who received no training (79.20%). Our findings also revealed a predominance of traditional village poultry farming (88.48%). Almost, all farmers have local breeds and the chicken is the commonest species (96.60%), followed by guinea fowl (51.60%). The average flock size was 64.74 (±8.02) birds per household. Birds were raised in a mixed-species flock (67.33%) under an extensive management system based on freeranging (93.73%) and scavenging with little (98.27) % or no (1.73%) supplementary feeding. This is due to the lack of financial resources (96.22%), human competition for the same food resource (64.57%), and scarcity of feed resources and their rising prices (41.55%). The feed resources used to supply chickens are usually cereal grains and co-products and to a lesser extent homemade or commercial concentrate feed. Other main features of the production system were improper housing, inadequate hygiene, and poor health care. Newcastle disease, predators, and parasites were the main causes of flock losses. Since agriculture is the main source of income of farmers, major reasons for rearing poultry were the generation of secondary income (sale), home consumption, gift, and saving. Therefore, most rural households do not see their birds as a commercial venture and consequently invest very little money and time in the activity. From this study, it is evident that interventions are necessary in the areas of feeding, housing, disease control, training, and credit delivery.

Keywords: Burkina Faso; Village poultry farming; Production system; Local breeds; Feeding; Management practices