A five-day training course on keeping healthy and productive chickens for household income and food and nutrition security was held for community members from 11 villages at the government agricultural training centre at Mirigeda. Despite delays due to COVID-19, this community training finally went ahead from 28 September to 2 October, using a COVID-19 safe plan involving social distancing and hygiene practices.

Mr Michael Aisi, a Senior Provincial Livestock Officer and Para Vet from the Central Provincial Government and Sylvester Bannon – former Central Province DAL Advisor and leader of a local existing Village Chicken Cooperative Group, trained participants in the essentials of setting up productive village poultry flocks. The group members were an eager and diverse group made up of males and females, included youth, the elderly and a vision-impaired person.

Participants learned about farm plans for biosecurity, housing chickens (including adequate floor litter management, spacing, roosts and nest boxes), disease prevention, using local feeds, egg management, breeding management (selecting bird traits for good laying and meat purposes) and business plans (including forming farmer cooperatives to promote marketing and value chain development of locally adapted breeds). They also toured one of our supported village poultry Master Farms managed by Master Farmer Mr Edea Egu, to see firsthand how productive and valuable (not to mention beautiful!) household village chicken flocks can be with the right care and use of freely available local resources.