Abstract:
Poultry farming has increasingly emerged as one of the most strategic agricultural enterprises for promoting inclusive rural development, employment creation, and household food security in developing economies. In Kenya, poultry production remains one of the most widely practiced livestock activities due to its relatively low capital requirements, rapid production cycles, and strong domestic demand for poultry meat and eggs. Despite its widespread adoption, however, the sector continues to operate below its productive and commercial potential. Most poultry enterprises remain small-scale, informal, and weakly integrated into structured value chains, limiting their contribution to sustainable economic transformation. This paper presents a systems-based analysis of poultry farming in Kenya through a structured review of scholarly literature, policy reports, and comparative international evidence. The study argues that the major constraints facing the poultry subsector are not merely technical or farm-level inefficiencies, but deeper structural and institutional fragmentation across production systems, markets, infrastructure, governance, finance, and knowledge systems. Drawing on Value Chain Theory, the Decent Work Framework, and Complex Adaptive Systems Theory, the paper conceptualizes poultry farming as an interconnected socio-economic system in which outcomes emerge from interactions among multiple actors and institutions.
The study further positions learning institutions as critical meso-level actors that bridge the gap between macrolevel policy structures and micro-level production systems. Universities and research institutions contribute not only through training and innovation generation but also through stakeholder coordination, agribusiness
incubation, and market integration initiatives. Comparative evidence from Indonesia, Nepal, Nigeria, and South Africa demonstrates that sustainable poultry sector transformation depends on coordinated institutional frameworks, cooperative systems, infrastructure investment, and effective value chain governance.
The paper concludes that poultry farming can only contribute meaningfully to community empowerment, decent work creation, and rural industrialization when embedded within integrated agricultural ecosystems rather than fragmented project-based interventions. It recommends a transition toward systems-oriented agricultural development models that strengthen coordination among institutions, markets, farmers, and policy actors.
