Factors Impacting Guinea Fowl (Numida meleagris) Production in Ivory Coast

Abstract

SUMMARY: Guinea fowl production is very important for some countries from a socioeconomic and nutritional perspective. Guinea fowl production is low in the Ivory Coast, even if the demand is high. In order to improve understanding of the factors impacting guinea fowl production, a survey was conducted in 2017 in 8 regions (97 farmers) out of a total of 31 regions in Ivory Coast. The aims were 1) to establish a global typology of farmers; 2) to assess the goal of their enterprise (sale or home consumption), and 3) to classify the farmers on their socioeconomic profile and guinea fowl farming system. The sampling was conducted following a snowball type design (chain referral sampling method), a non-probabilistic method where farmers were selected not from a sampling framework but from a friendship network of the farmers already part of the sample. Guinea fowl production was undertaken by persons from all social levels without distinctions due to education level. The majority of farmers were men with no formal education. They had less than 20 guinea fowl (31% of interviewed farmers) and practiced extensive farming. The majority (66%) of farmers of the survey focused on home consumption of egg and meat with sale of surplus. One of the major challenges for farmers is to control the mortality of young guinea fowl, which can be very high. The development of this breeding activity could contribute to food self-sufficiency in animal protein and contribute to the fight against poverty in Ivorian rural areas

Keywords

• live guinea fowl
• egg
• Numida meleagris, survey
• Ivory Coast