Chickens from the ACGG project to the rescue of African women and families

Women represent 70% of African smallholder chicken producers. Chickens can be a real way out of difficult livelihoods for these women and their households. A new five-year project, SciDev.Net recently reported, is aiming at leveraging this potential in novel ways.

$Launching the African Chicken Genetic Gain Project in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. July 15, 2015 (photo credit: ILRI\Mercy Becon).$

Launching the African Chicken Genetic Gain Project in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in July 2015 (photo credit: ILRI\Mercy Becon).

The first step is to increase the productivity of chicken production for smallholders. Tadelle Dessie, director of the African Chicken Genetic Gains (ACGG) project, is convinced that this productivity can be doubled and that we can guarantee ‘an egg per person per day‘ if:

Tropically adapted chicken strains are adopted in the project countries (Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania);
Women are in the driving seat and share their preferences for these chicken strains;
Public-private partnerships are put in place and organized around effective poultry value chains boosted by innovation platforms.

Alberto Leny, from SciDev.Net’s Sub-Saharan Africa desk, wrote the article about the project and its potential after following a workshop by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in September 2015 to explore the potential of using outreach and communication to increase uptake of animal genetic research technologies.

Read the full article ‘Project helping women gain more from raising chicken‘ in SciDev.Net.