1.1. Introduction

The aim of this guide is to promote the development of intensive poultry farming and related activities in the Western Sahelian area. It follows on from the first meetings for professionals in the poultry and livestock feed industries organized by the CDI in Saly-Portudal (Senegal) in November 1993.

Intensive poultry farming is a quick and effective means of supplying African communities with animal protein of high nutritional quality at an extremely competitive price.

However, the exchange of views between ACP and EU operators taking part in these meetings showed that, alongside some very successful poultry farms, many others were suffering from insufficient mastery of production parameters. It turned out that the failures in this sector could be put down to a lack of technical information for farmers, inadequate structuring of the production phases (inadequacy or lack of hatcheries, abattoirs, egg tray production), frequently deficient feed quality, precarious husbandry conditions, lack of training of husbandry staff or inappropriate production tools.

This guide seeks to remedy that situation by providing readers, whether they be managers of poultry-keeping projects or professional poultry farmers, with a set of useful and realistic information which will enable them to avoid the many pitfalls which await them along the way. The CDI is not presenting a poultry farming manual, but a set of recommendations drawn from both African and European professionals who have acquired, through experience, know-how in the field of intensive poultry farming which can be of benefit to everyone involved in this activity.

In this guide, the reader will find diagrams, advice, a technological profile of poultry farming from primary production through to marketing, recommendations for designing a poultry farming project, a hatchery, an abattoir or even a compound feed production unit, relating in all cases to small units. It is easier to start on a modest scale than to manage a major enterprise in which neither production techniques nor management have been fully mastered, while making plans from the outset for possible future expansion.

The CDI's strategy is to support small, well-structured projects which have the greatest chance of success because the rigorous design process means that they are adapted to African socio-economic structural contingencies.