Enhancing poultry Biosecurity and Health Management through capacitating farmers, veterinarians and researchers in Central and Northern Ethiopia: towards improvement of Poultry productivity(BHMEP).

Poultry production is one of the main livestock subsectors that contribute to the national agricultural GDP of Ethiopia. It requires little investment and space to start and plays important roles in generating employment opportunities, improving family nutrition, and empowering women. However, this subsector is constrained by different factors such as infectious diseases, poor husbandry and poor or no biosecurity practices. Among the infectious diseases, Newcastle disease (ND), Infectious Bursal disease (IBD), Salmonellosis, and Coccidiosis are the most important ones. This disease burden is continuously pressuring the poultry subsector, especially those with poor or no biosecurity practices. The impacts are intense in Central Ethiopia where the poultry production density is high and in Northern Ethiopia where there is an expansion in poultry production.
Practicing regular sound biosecurity measures as part of the best management program will help to reduce the possibility of contracting diseases and thereby their spread. As stated by the World Health Organization (WHO)and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), biosecurity is a strategic and integrated approach to analyzing and managing risks (WHO,2010).
This project aims to improve poultry productivity by addressing three focal points. The first area focuses on capacitating the farmers, farm attendants, and veterinarians with regard to biosecurity, poultry flock health management, husbandry practices, and in-time outbreak reporting. The second focus area will be enhancing the capacity of laboratories started by KEET joint project in 2019 (by this project promoters) and additional government and private labs for the betterment diagnosis of poultry diseases. The third focus area will be research targeting the four common diseases and biosecurity assessment of the farms using the biocheck.UGent tool kit (https://biocheckgent.com/).