Guinea fowl production: The potential for nutrition and income generation in rural households in Burkina Faso

Small-scale poultry keeping is a common practice particularly among low-income households in sub-Saharan African countries. Due to the limited resources of these households, the flock is raised on a free-range basis, where the birds are left to fend for themselves, mostly affecting their performance. Well-structured poultry farming among these low-income households has the potential to improve not only the financial standing, but also the nutrition and health of the households. The purpose of this survey was to understand existing household food practices and aspirations for expanded poultry business among mothers of young children involved in smallholder guinea fowl farming in Burkina Faso. This was a cross-sectional study of a convenience sample of women engaged in small-scale poultry. A semi-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Questionnaire for data collection was administered in a face-to-face interview format by trained research assistants. All interviews were conducted in MORE, the predominant language spoken in the study area. Descriptive analysis was performed using Microsoft Excel and reported as frequencies and percentages for categorical variables, and means for continuous variables. One hundred and fifty women with children under 5 years of which 98.7% were the biological mothers participated in the study. About 68% of participants were 28 years or older, 45% have no formal education and 30% had 6 or more children in the household. Although over 58% of participants reported household income from agriculture, only 8.7% was livestock related. About half of the participants reported they would market/sell products from expansion of guinea fowl farming to raise additional income to support the household, while another half would use some of the meat and eggs to improve the nutrition of the household. Findings from this study suggest mothers from low-income rural households are interested in income-generating avenues, particularly, expansion in their smallholder guinea fowl farming to improve the socio-economic standing and nutritional health of their household.