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Poultry Production in Uganda: Challenges and Opportunities

Conference Paper · December 2019

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 Poultry Production in Uganda: Challenges and Opportunities

Brian Tainika1, Ahmet Şekeroğlu1,Mustafa Duman2, Yunus Emre Şentürk1

1Department of Animal Production and Technologies, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Technologies, Niğde Ömer
Halisdemir University, Niğde, Turkey
2Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University Bor Vocational School, Niğde

Abstract

The state of poultry production while heightening the challenges and opportunities are discussed in
this review article. The poultry sector of Uganda has more than 47 million chickens and about 88% are
local chickens. These are known for their social, cultural, and economic roles to rural communities in
Uganda thus improving the livelihoods of farmers. Local poultry is almost the only livestock reared by
every household in the rural areas. Therefore, its improved productivity can be a further step towards
poverty alleviation in rural communities. The free-range chicken has the ability to boost the
development in rural areas. This is because it requires a small area versus population growth and offers
employment to the majority of women and youth. The poultry industry of Uganda is boosted with
opportunities such as annual increasing population and urbanization and improvements in technology.
However, the development of the poultry sector is constrained by factors including but not limited to
diseases commonly Newcastle, feed availability and feed quality. Improving the local poultry
production systems will open the way to increased opportunities and successful distribution of food
and revenue in villages.

Key Words: poultry production, Uganda

Introduction

The global poultry industry has more than 23 billion birds and growing more than 5 times in the
last 50 years. Global egg production has reached to 73 million tons and poultry meat production has
reached to 100 million tons (Mottet and Tempio, 2017). Between 1961 and 2010, per capita global egg
consumption increased from 4.55 kg to 8.92 kg and poultry meat consumption increased from 2.88 kg
to 14.13 kg (Alexandratos and Bruisma, 2012). This growth rate is due to a variety of factors, such as
improved genotypes, advances in feed and feeding and vertical integration. Such factors make the
poultry industry more efficient, effective in terms of costs and productive than other sectors. Factors
that have accelerated the demand for animal-origin foods include population growth, living standards
and national income growth.
Uganda’s total poultry population is estimated at about 47.6 million chickens and of this, 87.7
percent is free-range local breeds. Commercial poultry production with exotic breeds is also increasing
as seen from 1,536000 in 2008 to 5,852000 in 2017 (MAAIF and UBOS, 2018). Out of 47.7 million
chickens, 37.4 million are for the source of meat and the central districts are owning the highest share
of exotic breeds. The reason for this is the high rate of urbanization and, the eastern region has mainly
local breeds. Egg production is estimated at 907.1 million with an increment of 2,8 percent from
882.6 million in 2016 (UBOS, 2018). 4.3 % of the annual agricultural revenue is from the poultry
sector. Chickens dominant the production system as the main poultry group but species such as
turkeys, ducks, guinea fowls and pigeons are also kept (Byarugaba‚ 2007; UBOS, 2017). In Uganda,
local poultry is an important animal resource in most rural areas. They are easy to acquire, and, under
improved management, their reproduction and production is high enough to realize faster income
generation due to the minimal initial investment. FAO, (2009) indicates that in rural communities,
free-range chickens contribute significantly to the livelihoods of farmers and, almost 40% of the total
households rear chickens. Local chickens provide cheap protein to supplement the diet, income and
they can easily be converted into cash in times of emergency such as catering for hospital and medical
bills (ASL2050. 2019). Data or information on the consumption of poultry meat and eggs (average
calories/capita/day) and (kg/capita/year) is not yet published as also indicated by Byarugaba (2007).

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 The production system includes (1) free range where less than 50 birds are housed in the owner’s
house, trees, bespoke houses, or nothing; (2) semi-intensive with 50-500 birds or more with modern
housing or houses made from local materials; (3) intensive system where birds especially exotics
ranging from 500-5000 or more are kept under a modern house with controlled internal environment
(Byarugaba, 2007). All the systems have varying levels of feed resource, health management, markets,
infrastructure, and product handling (ASL2050. 2019).

Breeds and Domestication

Local breeds
Locally adapted chickens include Ugandan Black, Ugandan Red, Ugandan brown, Nsesere (Naked
neck), Nyoro, Nsoga, and Nganda. They are named according to the geographical regions they live in,
or physical appearances as adopted by Animal Genetic Resources of Uganda (FAO, 2009).

Exotic breeds
Exotic breeds such as Rhode Island Red, Hubbard, Arbor Acres, Hybro, Bovans Brown, Bovans
Goldline, Australorps and Naira were introduced for the production of meat and eggs. In between 1950
and 1960, intensive poultry system had rapidly developed, and the sector was exporting poultry
products. However, the industry faced a dramatic decline in 1970s and 1980s due to political
insurgencies. It is believed that by 2002, the industry had made some progress due to the availability
of parent stock and thus, exotic chicken numbers had increased (Byarugaba, 2007).

Kuroiler chickens
These were the latest to be introduced in 2009 by Arizona State University (ASU) in collaboration
with the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), Uganda National Animal
Genetic Resources Center (NAGRC) and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). This was
through a campaign aimed at boasting the livelihood of rural communities. The breed has unique
features of being able to scavenge, tolerance to diseases, high meat quality and tolerance to
environmental conditions of the tropical region had been identified of this breed (USAID, 2017).
Other poultry categories for example, duck species are crossbreeds of the original Muscovy ducks
imported from Britain and their meat is not popular in Uganda (FAO, 2009). Broad Breasted Bronze
turkey breed were introduced in the 1950s by the American Colonialists. They were multiplied at the
government Livestock Experimental Station (LES) in Entebbe and Mbarara Stock farms. It is also
noted that the Uganda’s local or native turkey breed was listed as an endangered species on the world
watch list for domestic animal diversity (1995). By 1988 about 100-1000 of these breeds were
remaining (FAO, 2009).

Challenges
According to Byarugaba, (2007), Uganda has no data on the genetic makeup of the local breeds and
thus, local poultry breeders do not have an appropriate breeding program. In addition, farmers lack a
structured selection process on improving traits of economic importance like egg production. Similar
to many developing countries, rural poultry production is highly hindered by diseases and the common
ones being endemic new castle and coccidiosis with a high mortality rate of 40 -80 percent (FAO,
2009). Feed availability, feed quality and feed costs are a threat to commercial poultry production.
Availability of compounded feeds is hindered by competition for the ingredients such as cereal grains,
fish with humans, brewing industry and other livestock industries. Most of the medicines and vaccines
are imported making them expensive and their distribution is not extensive. Hatcheries and fertile eggs
are threatened by an expanding export business of day-old chicks (DOCs), feed and hatcheries from
Uganda to Rwanda which creates a huge gap (Vernooij et al., 2018).

Opportunities

The long-term policies and strategies like Uganda Vision 40 and National Development Plan
2015/16 – 2019/20 and the Agriculture Sector Strategic Plan 2015/16 – 2019/20 are targeting beef and

667
 chicken as priority commodities for development. The demand for animal origin foods as in marketing
and consumption is expected to increase. This is due to an increasing population of 3.7% annual
growth rate, urbanization growth rate of 3.5% and gains in real per capita income (World Bank, 2018;
ASL2050. 2017; FAO, 2017; ASL2050. 2019). In addition, the advances in technology such as big
data and automation will drive the poultry sector to improved productivity. This will improve the
quality of livestock production and management, livestock products and livestock value chains
(ASL2050. 2019). Trade agreements and increased mutual relationships between Uganda and other
developed countries has a very strong influence in positively shaping the poultry industry. Finally, the
expansion of broiler breeding materials and other related services like trainings through Cobb Africa
for Cobb Parent Stock for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Conclusions

It is recommended that the policies, legislations, and strategies should be implemented, improved,
and listing the roles various stakeholders play in the poultry sector.
The data base for local chicken production while recording information on breeders, day-old chick
producers, egg and meat producers, marketers and transporters should be put in place.
More research on the role of gender in local poultry production should be emphasized since gender
cannot be isolated from the industry.
The conservation of the native breeds should be one of the priorities as well as breeding programs
for the improvement of economic traits of the local chicken.
Networking nationally and internationally for information sharing and advanced learning.

References

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