Linking Utilisation and Conservation of Indigenous Chicken Genetic Resources to Value Chains

Indigenous chicken (IC) is the most common type of chicken raised in most rural parts of Africa. The objective of this paper was to link utilisation and conservation of IC genetic resources to value chains. The study was carried out in three regions of Kenya, Western, South Rift and North Rift. Two counties were selected from each. Data was then collected by individual interviews using structured questionnaires from 1650 participants who consisted of producers, traders and consumers. Using the structure-conduct-performance model, this study was able to describe the whole indigenous chicken value chain. Two models on market participation were analysed. While, Bivariate Tobit model was used to determine the linkages between utilization and conservation of genetic resources to market participation. Diseases and parasites, predators, price fluctuations and lack of market for products were the major constraints hindering productivity of indigenous chicken. Therefore, this hampered the performance of the value chain. Results also indicate that all the target variables influencing the farmer’s market participation were significant. These are age, education, and occupation of the household head. In addition, the total numbers of indigenous chicken owned and reared at the farm, distance to the main road, market price for the indigenous chicken products, production systems, access to market information, extension, preference for the indigenous chicken genotypes by farmers, and the preference for specific type of chicken and traits by the traders were significant. This procedure is useful in informing many different kinds of interventions to enhance performance of the chain and thereby improving the livelihoods of the producers through sustainable use of these resources. Therefore, in order to link farmers to high value markets, policy makers, stakeholders and Government need to improve the whole IC value chain through proper management in production, conservation and sustainable utilisation, promotion of infrastructural developments and strengthening poultry producers’ organisations to improve marketing.