NUMBERS AND DISTRIBUTION

In the Ethiopian context poultry effectively means domestic fowl (‘chicken’). In no part

of the available data, however, is there as much confusion as in the size of the national

flock. Time series data in various Statistical Abstracts for the period 1980-2006 show

very considerable – and sometimes almost unbelievable – fluctuations in annual numbers

of all livestock species from year to year or over short blocks of years. Short term

fluctuations in poultry numbers have apparently been more marked than those of

ruminant species but an upward trend of 2.5% per year was considered to have been

achieved that pushed numbers from approximately 14.2 million in 1981 to more than 32

million in 2005 (CSA, 2006). The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United

Nations (FAO) estimated 36 million birds in 2007, up from 30 million in 1997 based on

its own earlier estimates (FAOSTAT, 2003). A comparative analysis of FAO data ranks

Ethiopia as fourth in African countries in the number of poultry. The principal and

‘official’ national source provides a precise (but estimated and extrapolated from

sample surveys at varying intervals in the past) figure for 2005 of 42 915 625 birds

(CSA, 2006).

Ethiopia comprises many agro-ecological zones but, put very simply, there is a

dichotomy of moist highlands at altitudes over 1500 metres above sea level in the

centre surrounded by dry lowlands below that elevation. The highlands are

characterised by high human population density and a mainly sedentary mixed croplivestock

farming system. Pastoral systems of production are common in the lowlands

where there is an almost universal degree of transhumance or nomadism. Consequent on

these ecological and demographic factors most poultry are found in the highland areas

Poultry production in Ethiopia: R.T Wilson

World's Poultry