Technology and its Role in Transforming Smallholder Farmers in Rural Africa

With food security high on the global agenda, and the year 2014 declared as the International Year of Family Farming by the UN General Assembly as well as the Year of Agriculture by the African Union, there has been a lot of discussion about transforming smallholder farmers, particularly in Africa. At the forefront of these recent discussions is the financial inclusion of these farmers as well as the promotion of smallholder farmer groups that are linked to markets. However, what we also need to bring to the table is a key element at the core of transforming and strengthening these farmers: technology.

Smallholder farmers are a marginalized group that has previously been overlooked in the advancement of farming technology. The focus has primarily been on elevating commercial farmers in developing countries and not so much on smallholder farmers. These farmers primarily practice subsistence farming due to their low volumes of output in comparison to their commercial competitors. Unfortunately, this tunnel vision has resulted in the social, financial, educational and technological exclusion of a group of farmers that ironically represents a large majority of farmers in the developing world.

Farmer selling his poultry at a local market in Iki-Iki.

In Africa, one of the most common agricultural practices in rural households is poultry farming. Although it is often overlooked due to the tendency to relate farming to cash crops or to focus on larger livestock and fisheries, the reality is that poultry keeping is regularly a primary or secondary farming practice for smallholder farmers. What makes it so prevalent is because the landscape, size of land, weather conditions, and agricultural waste are conducive to free-range, poultry farming. Furthermore, the high reproductive rate and low maintenance costs, especially for chickens, make poultry farming a valuable source of income and food security. However, for these smallholder farmers to find success in any type of farming, they need to have access to the right technology, and in the case of poultry farmers, the technology that matters most pertains to the health of their birds.

Chicken awaits vaccination  under his owner's arm.

When referring to technology, it is not just about mechanical or electronic equipment. It is about all elements of technology that play a part in the success of a smallholder farmer. For rural poultry farmers, the health-related technology for their poultry is often inaccessible, inadequate and unaffordable. In Uganda, for instance, one of the greatest threats to poultry is Newcastle Disease (ND), a highly contagious, viral disease that kills hundreds of thousands of birds in sub-Saharan Africa every year. There are ND vaccines that can protect these farmers from losing their birds but the only vaccine that has been available to them does not suit rural settings. It is thermolabile and therefore requires a cold-chain delivery system, which makes it inaccessible to rural farmers who live in remote areas where this important requirement cannot be met. Fortunately, a local manufacturing company recently introduced a thermostable vaccine called KUKUSTAR into the market. This new vaccine can maintain its efficacy at room temperature for up to three days unlike the other vaccine that loses its potency in less than three hours. This new technology allows a more innovative and strategic distribution system, which will give rural farmers access to a quality vaccine that was designed based on their limitations.

Vaccinating ducks in a household in Eastern Uganda.

Poultry farming is just one of many examples where technology provided or available to smallholder farmers is not appropriate or adequate. The reality is that even if we provide farmers with financial support and give them access to markets, these initiatives cannot have their desired effect without the correct technology. Money cannot buy technology that is not available or does not exist, and market access depends on volumes that can only be achieved with the use of the right technology. So the bottom line is that technology, more specifically appropriate technology that incorporates local context, education and a strategic approach for distribution, is at the core of transforming and strengthening smallholder farmers.

Although there are other issues in play that affect their level of success, such as politics and climate change, it is clear that the introduction and creation of appropriate technology can have a sizeable impact on smallholder farmers. This in turn could significantly influence poverty alleviation, public health and global development as a whole in a sustainable fashion. So moving forward, we also need to focus on technology if we want to achieve this overall transformation of smallholder farmers.

“A Father Learning from his Son” - Profiles on Farmers using KUKUSTAR

Yokosofat Mwayi is a 48-year-old farmer in Budaka, which is located in Eastern Uganda. He has been farming poultry for years and has witnessed the loss of his birds on numerous occasions to outbreaks of Newcastle Disease. 

One day, his son came home and told him and his wife about KUKUSTAR after learning about the vaccine at a local market day (during our KUKUSTAR promotions). He advised his father and mother to vaccinate their birds because it would protect them from the outbreaks. At first, they doubted him and dismissed his claims. However, after many discussions, Omuria's son was able to convince his parents to try the vaccine and they administered it to three chickens.  To their surprise, the chickens survived while others died, and since then, Omuria and his wife started vaccinating their poultry. His son is now the advisor for the community and works as a community-based vaccinator, vaccinating their birds as well as those of their neighbors who pay him to purchase KUKUSTAR and vaccinate their poultry.

“The Battle of the Spouses” - Profiles on Farmers using KUKUSTAR

Mbarak and Grace are examples of spouses in different households that took a chance and vaccinated their birds with the KUKUSTAR Newcastle Disease (ND) vaccine against the wishes of their other halves. As a result of their ambition, Mbarak and Grace were both forced by their spouses to separate their birds from their partners’ because they did not trust the vaccine and wanted to see the results first before engaging in the practice. The result was the same in both households. 

In the case of Mbarak, he separated his birds because his wife did not want hers vaccinated. Eventually, an ND outbreak found its way into their home and his chickens survived, while all his wife’s birds died. Since then, Mbarak’s wife has embraced the importance of vaccination and now also vaccinates her poultry with KUKUSTAR. 

For Grace, her situation was a little bit different. She was discouraged from vaccinating her chickens by both her husband and neighbors who claimed that using KUKUSTAR would kill her birds. However, despite the warnings, Grace still chose to vaccinate her birds. As expected, during an outbreak of the disease, her birds survived while both her husband’s and her neighbors’ poultry perished. After witnessing her success, both her spouse and her neighbors soon followed suit and vaccinated their birds. 

One neighbor, however, still believed that the vaccine was dangerous. He claimed that the vaccine, which is administered through an eye drop, destroyed the eye of his hen and made her blind. Grace told him that she had never had that experience, so she advised him to only vaccinate the newborn chicks and not the hen. When the next ND outbreak hit their households, the disease killed the hen but the chicks survived because they had all received the vaccine.  Since then, he too vaccinates his birds with KUKUSTAR.

Like many other couples and families, there is often a division in households when it comes to the introduction of new animal-health products to their poultry. Many farmers have had negative experiences, especially with vaccines. This is because the products are often inadequate, there is insufficient education about vaccines, and/or because farmers fail to understand the difference between vaccines, which prevent and protect from disease, and medicine, which treats sick birds. The vaccination of sick birds and the misguided idea that a vaccine can cure their birds has left them with misconceptions and skepticism about buying products related to the health of their poultry.

World Veterinary Day 2014 - Animal Welfare in Rural Settings

The theme of this year’s World Veterinary Day is Animal Welfare. Through the work of numerous organizations such as PETA, animal welfare has become a social movement, primarily focusing on the fair treatment of animals. However, animal welfare goes beyond just addressing animal cruelty, it looks at the overall wellbeing of animals.

As 2014 is also the International Year of Family Farming, it is important to look at animal welfare in rural settings, which is affected by the lack or limitations in basic resources for these animals such as animal health solutions and proper nutrition. In rural Uganda, for instance, majority of the households carry poultry and other livestock. However, access to these health solutions for animals is inadequate due to limited funds, technology, education and other resources. 

Brentec Vaccines is a manufacturing company in Uganda that is dedicated to improving and protecting the health and welfare of rural farm animals in Africa. By teaching rural farmers how to take care of their animals properly, providing them with preventative animal health solutions, and educating them about diseases and treatments, we hope to transform the livelihood of both the farmers and the animals in rural households.

Animal welfare is not just important for animals and animal activists. It affects all of us because healthy animals that are farmed correctly can play a pivotal role in improving public health through a number of contributing factors, including income, hygiene, health, and nutrition to name a few. So by increasing the value we place on animal welfare we are in turn investing in the wellbeing of human beings as well.

Surviving the Ill-Wishers - Profiles on Farmers using KUKUSTAR

Margaret Mboizi is a veteran user of our KUKUSTAR thermostable Newcastle Disease (ND) vaccine. She lives in a village called Bulangira in Eastern Uganda and is a 38-year-old poultry farmer in a household that accommodates eight people. She first started using the vaccine back in 2012, and although she has had a lot of success, her journey has not been easy because she has had to deal with ill-wishers trying to sabotage her poultry-keeping practice along the way. 

Early in our distribution and pilot testing, Margaret was one of the few farmers who had the initiative to get involved early and she began vaccinating her chickens. Although others thought it was too much of a risk to use a new and relatively unknown vaccine on their poultry, she believed it could make a difference and so invested in the health of her chickens.

Her early investment paid off and in just a couple of months, Margaret quickly saw the population of her free-range birds increase from just a few birds to 250.She then began to periodically sell off some of the mature birds as new crops of chicks hatched so as to create room for the new chicks   Now, two years later, the turn-over of bird population in her household has risen enough for her to go as far as sending one of her children to university. In fact, over the 2013 Christmas holidays alone, she was able to sell chickens worth 450,000 UGX ($180). In addition to her poultry, Margaret now has cows and goats as well that she was able to acquire from the sale of chickens. Yet the neighbours who had not vaccinated their birds, lost them when an ND outbreak came.

Her success became an inspiration for her neighbours and other family members who began to visit her in the morning and evening to ask how she had done so well. Her response was, and still is, always the same; KUKUSTAR. During these visits, she would talk to them about the importance of vaccinating their birds and rearing them properly. 

However, not all her neighbours wished her well. Indeed Margaret recounts an incident where one neighbour who never vaccinated his birds decided to throw over the edge separating the two homes offals (intestines) of dead chickens with the intention that Margaret’s chicken would eat them and also fall sick and die. Margaret’s children watched all this and reported to the mother. But to the surprise of both Margaret and the neighbour her flock of birds did not fall sick or die even after eating the infected offals of her neighbour’s dead birds. This was a huge shock to her neighbour who, after witnessing this, was now completely convinced that the vaccine worked and asked to buy one of Margaret’s vaccinated hens. She accepted his request and since then, her neighbour, and the rest of the community, have embraced KUKUSTAR. 

With all her experience and success, Margaret now educates the community on the proper practices for poultry keeping and, in addition to being a successful poultry farmer, she has now become a vaccinator for her neighbours, who give her the money to buy and vaccinate their birds for them. Margaret is the perfect example of how an innovative animal health solution, like KUKUSTAR, can help a rural farmer improve the livelihoods of the people in his/her household. Furthermore, for women like Margaret who are able to invest the limited time they have on free-range poultry keeping because of its low-maintenance, it is a way for them to become financially independent while also being seen as valuable contributors and members of their households.

Poultry Farming: The seed to fighting poverty (Where is Dorothy Now?)

Back in the day, ancestors in many parts of Uganda developed a well-tested strategy for fighting poverty. This strategy was built on the idea that with just one chicken (a hen), it is possible to take a child and a family out of poverty. The practice, which is now known as Entandikwa in Luganda (meaning “start-up capital”), centers on the chicken as the start-up capital. So when a baby is born, the grandparents are supposed to gift the newborn with a chicken so that as the child grows, the chicken and its offspring will provide an income to support this child and help give them the education, nutrition and healthcare they may need.

How this idea is put into practice is best seen through the story of one of our veterans, Dorothy. For those of you who do not know Dorothy, you can read about how she became a part of our family in the Trading a meal for an improved livelihood entry from Nov. 7, 2012. 

Dorothy with her most recent offspring;
four young chicks (Dec. 2013).

Dorothy had her first dose of KUKUSTAR just over 14 months ago. After narrowly escaping a center spot at a roast dinner in September 2012, she has come a long way since our last report on her. If you remember well, she was given a second chance at life and proved her value to her new household in rural, Eastern Uganda, producing 12 chicks less than two months after her fate changed. Now, just over one year later, Dorothy continues to be a pillar in her household. From what began as just 12 chicks, her fertility and good health have given way to two goats and numerous chicken offspring.

Over the last 14 months Dorothy, as well as the females from her first offspring that came of age have hatched chickens that have been primarily sold, eaten or gifted. Through the rise in the chicken population, the household income was able to grow enough to invest in the purchase of one goat in April 2013 (seven months after they received Dorothy). To understand the value of each chick that is able to survive disease and predators, and reach adulthood is best understood by its price in the market.  The average price for a chicken in rural Uganda is 15, 000 to 20,000 Uganda shillings (UGX) approximately $6 to $8 USD while a goat is 10 times the price, going for about 150,000 to 200,000 UGX or $60 to $80 USD.  An egg alone sells for about 400 UGX or $0.17.

The two goats that are now in the household as a
result of Dorothy and her offspring (Dec. 2013).

As luck (or keen observation and skill) might have it, the purchased goat turned out to already be pregnant and gave birth weeks after arriving in her new household. This increased the livestock and their value in the household to two goats and numerous chickens. But Dorothy’s journey did not end there. She still continues to contribute to the household’s income and currently has five chickens running around that will soon be ready to begin incubating eggs of their own, as well as her four young chicks that she is still minding for.

The journey of Dorothy and her impact on a rural household in Eastern Uganda is a great example of how livestock, in particular poultry, can improve the income of rural households. It also shows how one chicken (through Entandikwa) can support a child into adulthood, by providing them with the nutritional (through meat and eggs) and financial stability they need to prosper despite the disadvantages they are born into.

The almost effortless practice of poultry keeping, especially with local free-range birds that do not require a lot of special attention, along with the reproductive rate of just one female bird can improve the lives of the people living in her household. However, in order to make this happen, we need to help these farmers find success in poultry farming by helping them keep their birds healthy through vaccination. KUKUSTAR, which was designed to give rural poultry farmers access to a vaccine for Newcastle Disease (which is 100% fatal in chicks and 60-90% fatal in adult chickens), is the first step in the right direction towards igniting a movement to fight poverty through poultry farming.