Analysis of the economic performance of cross bred chickens: a case of peri urban areas of Wakiso district, Uganda

Abstract

The accelerated human population growth in peri urban centers of Wakiso district has resulted in high rates of unemployment. This coupled with shortage of arable land due to Urbanisation, has led to urban poor to turn to poultry rearing for their livelihood, because poultry production requires small spaces and it is a low cost investment compared to other livestock enterprises. However, despite government of Uganda (GOU) and Non-Government Organization (NGO) efforts to support this enterprise, it has been observed that the profitability may be low. Hence, the need to conduct this study in the peri urban areas to establish factors that influence the economic performance of crossbred chickens in the two systems. Cross section survey design was employed. A total of 136 respondents were randomly selected 68 respondents for each production system (intensive and semi intensive). The study examined the characteristics of farmers assessed the performance of farmers using gross margin in both systems. The results show that socio-economic factors and management practices influenced the performance of cross bred chickens in the peri urban areas. The feed cost constituted the highest percentage of the total variable cost per bird up to 55.4% and 47.7% for intensive and semi intensive production system, respectively. The gross margins per bird for both production systems were UShs. 3,941.07(intensive) and UShs. 3,311.5 (semi intensive) respectively. This suggests that intensive production system is a better production system compared to semi intensive production system in terms of profitability. Factors found to influence profitability include: socio economic and management practices. The management practices include; provision of supplement feeds, provision of light for two more weeks after brooding keeping production records house hold size. The study recommends; encouragement of youth to take on poultry farming, need to train crossbred chicken farmers on the best management practices, and need for policies that would enable cross bred chicken farmers to access credit.