Global food price increases affect households’ livelihood in developed and developing economies. It impinges on the socio-economic and food and nutritional security of nations, households, and individuals within households. At the national level, the effect may include a change in the overall socio-economic and political conditions through its consequence on the trade balance and change in the commodity and labor markets. At the household and individual levels, it affects the income and expenditure of households and the nutrition, health, and education of individuals within households ( Benson et al., 2008). The potential impact of increasing food prices on households’ welfare, mainly on poverty and food security, has been an interesting topic in the research and development community ( Benson et al., 2008; Attanasio et al., 2013; Amolegbe et al., 2021). However, existing empirical evidence is mixed and usually debatable ( Swinnen and Squicciarini, 2012). For instance, some researchers argue that increasing food prices reduces poverty ( Headey, 2018). These researchers associate the effect of food price increases on increasing supply and wage responses, as most of the world’s poor livelihood is strongly associated with agriculture. Other researchers suggest that rising food prices would increase poverty, mainly in urban areas and among poor rural households, as most resource-poor households are usually net buyers of different food groups ( Ivanic andMartin, 2008; Hoyos and Medvedev, 2011). For some researchers, increasing food prices have temporal effects. Accordingly, rising food prices increase poverty in the short run, as most poor households spend their budget on food. It reduces poverty in the long run by increasing smallholder producers’ wage rates and profits ( Ivanic and Martin, 2014). Nevertheless, conclusions from most empirical findings rely on various assumptions, and generalizing most results to the heterogeneous global population seems highly unlikely.

Increasing poultry product consumption trends have attracted researchers and development practitioners to look for interventions that transform the low-input low-output-based village chicken production to a high yielding production system. However, due to the intricate nature of the production system, there is a dearth of evidence that helps design comprehensive interventions at the smallholder level. Using national-level representative data collected from 3555 village chicken producers in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania, this study examines the technical efficiency of village chicken production and investigates the main factors that explain the level of inefficiency. We applied a stochastic frontier analysis to simultaneously quantify the level of technical efficiency and identify factors associated with heterogeneity in inefficiency. We found that the level of technical efficiency is extremely low in the three countries, suggesting enormous opportunities to enhance productivity using available resources. The heterogeneity in technical efficiency is strongly associated with producers’ experience in breed improvements and flock management, limited technical knowledge and skills, limited access to institutions and markets, smaller flock size, gender disparities, and household livelihood orientation. We argue the need to adopt an integrated approach to enhance village producers’ productivity and transform the traditional subsistence-based production system into a commercially oriented semi-intensive production system.

Enhancing smallholder chicken production and productivity is an integral component of agricultural development strategies in sub-Saharan Africa. The African Chicken Genetic Gain (ACGG) project has been testing, identifying, and disseminating tropically adapted improved breeds (TAIBs) in Africa to improve the production and productivity of the sector. We applied a multimethod approach and integrated analysis to explore the overall feasibility of TAIBs under smallholder management conditions and documented evidence for sustained adoption. We used data from a baseline survey, on-farm experiment, cluster-randomized study, and market assessment survey to analyse the technical, economic, social, and environmental feasibility of TAIBs adoption under smallholder management conditions. The multimethod approach attests TAIBs as a sustainable technological alternative to smallholder chicken producers in the region. Most smallholder farmers prefer TAIBs to indigenous breeds, and TAIBs-based production enhance producers’ consumption and income generation goals. Moreover, adopting these breeds generates higher economic gains, is socially viable, is technically feasible, and has mitigable environmental risks. However, sustained adoption requires delivery models, capacity building, marketing and financial models, and integrated risks reduction strategies. We argue that demonstrating innovations’ economic, social, technical, and ecological viability and enhancing access to efficient input and output markets are vital for sustained agricultural technology adoption.

Adopting agricultural technologies is crucial to improve productivity and livelihoods in developing countries. While much research has focused on adoption decisions, understanding dis-adoption, when farmers stop using technology, is equally important. Studies on agricultural technology adoption often treat dis-adopters (those who initially adopted but later discontinued to use) and never-adopters (those who never adopted) as the same, using binary models to analyze farmers’ decisions. We argue that a better understanding of these decisions can be achieved by separately analyzing ’never-adoption’, ’dis-adoption’, and ’adoption.’ Using nationally representative data from three African countries, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania, we developed a multinomial logit model to analyze the adoption of improved chicken breeds. Our findings show that dis-adopters of improved chicken are different from never-adopters. Factors associated with dis-adoption include gender and education of household heads, access to training and extension services, breeding and culling practices, access to markets, use of complementary inputs, production objectives, landholding size, income diversity, and access to finance. Policies and strategies that aim to enhance sustained adoption and use of improved chicken breeds should promote a bundle of technologies, including tailored training, women empowerment, locally adapted and farmer-preferred chicken breeds, complementary inputs and services, innovative marketing strategies, and delivery models for bundles of technologies.