Scientists launch Ethiopian farm to breed healthy, bug resistant chickens
Like 2 Dislike 0 Published on 1 May 2018
(26 Apr 2018) Rresearchers are investigating the genetics of chickens in an unusual farm laboratory just launched in Ethiopia.
The initiative is to develop disease-resistant, climate-resilient chickens to improve nutrition and income for farmers in East Africa.
STORYLINE
These chicks could be anywhere in the world, but they're part of an interesting research study in Addis Ababa.
This is the new International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) launched today (Thursday 26 April).
Geneticist Professor Olivier Hanotte explains that diversity and genetics are at the heart of the farm.
"For agricultural species, like chicken cattle and so on, diversity is that the roots of productivity; improvement of productivity. If we want animals, chickens, who produce more eggs, who grow faster, which are more resistant we have to select them from a pool, from a pool of diversity. And this is why diversity entered the game. Without diversity there will be no breeding improvements."
This is all part of the Incubated Worlds initiative, a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded African Chicken Genetic Gains (ACGG) project.
The aim is to tap the rich genetic diversity found in poultry to provide more opportunities for rural poultry producers.
These farmers are often women who want to earn a decent living to raise healthy, well-nourished families.
Hanotte says: "Today, Ethiopia is one of the richest country in terms of diversity. So we have a huge access to material that we can compare and work with. So having this facility in Ethiopia, which incidentally is also the cradle of humanity as we know, is actually very important and will allow us to do more if we had to do it somewhere else."
Fellow scientist Tadelle Dessie says: "Whatever we will be doing this facility in relation to improvement, productivity and production improvement, will trickle down to benefit the poor smallholder farmers in Ethiopia and elsewhere."
Genetics and making use of traditional animal husbandry skills are fundamental to the project.
Art installation are located on the site to increase awareness, one large artwork features the heads of poultry, elsewhere scientists have set up a room with the book with details of the human genome.
Dessie explains "the local contributes to the global. And the global contributes to the local. The global cannot exist without the local. And the local cannot exist without the global. So we are trying to bring that one and use art to send a message to the community, to send a message to the development practitioners, to send a message to the farmers."
Artist Koen Vanmechelen, created the art works and has been associated with the project. He says the chicken has become a global symbol : "This chicken, which is actually a global animal you can find it everywhere, but at the same time it is also very local because everybody adapted to their area. And that is fascinating because that is culture." he says.
In Ethiopia access to good health care is difficult especially in remote areas.
It makes the raising of strong resilient chickens vital to the wellbeing of smallholder farmers.
Fitsum Gebrehana lives at the outskirts of Addis Ababa, Karaoke.
He and his wife make a living by raising their chickens and he says that his techniques have improved in recent years. .
The project hopes to inspire other farmers to invest in poultry as way to increase livelihoods.
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