In the US, there are efforts to build small meat processing plants to counter the market’s control by a handful of global companies. While these plants can undoubtedly improve the incomes of some producers and plant workers, they’re unlikely to change the dynamic of oligopoly that results in things like child labor in processing plants.
In Kenya, there are efforts to prevent this extreme level of concentration before it happens.
As Kenya—and much of Africa—urbanizes, and fast-food chains expand in Nairobi and other cities, the chicken industry is going the way of that in the US. Large corporations have built industrial supply chains, complete with contract farmers, battery cages and poultry bred to supply extra large amounts of breast meat.
Kitui County, in eastern Kenya, is populated by family farmers. Like farmers elsewhere in Kenya, those in Kitui are often approached by corporations to raise poultry under contract. To counter this, the Kitui Development Center (KDC) has been helping family farmers successfully run a cooperative to raise chickens under humane and sustainable conditions. The cooperative is owned and controlled by the farmers.
KDC provides community-based trainers and community health workers to ensure humane conditions and animal and farmer health without widespread antibiotic use. The cooperative has also developed ways to efficiently gather and use household food waste to supplement other organic feed. Preventing the introduction of unnecessary antibiotics and the efficient use of household food waste reduces input costs and increases profits for farmers.
Crucially, KDC also provides access to a processing facility so farmers capture income and profit along the value chain. Farmers have learned marketing techniques that enable them to sell processed chicken to stores and restaurants in local communities. Profits are used to expand output and learn more sophisticated business skills. Farmers earn profits and communities have a steady supply of healthy and affordable meat.
The KDC poultry value chain is a model of community-based livestock production based on environmentally sustainable methods. Its success means family farmers can resist the short-term economic incentives to become part of an industrial supply chain.
