Backyard Poultry and Food Security

Zeshan Zulfiqar*, Muhammad Khalid Bashir, Shahid Ur Rehman, Umar Farooq, Muhammad Farooq Khalid, Muhammad Arslan, Rahat Mobeen
Department of Poultry Science, UAF Sub-campus Toba Tek Singh, Pakistan
Institute of Animal and Dairy Sciences, Faculty of Animal Husbandry, University of Agriculture Faisalabad
Abstract
Food security is defined as “Ensuring that all members of a household has adequate diet in access for normal life”. Both of its elements e.g. food access and food availability can be achieved through domestic production in the form of meat, eggs and grains. The importance of backyard poultry in improving the nutritional status and financial condition of poor families has been described briefly by FAO. Rural families take the benefits of some common resources by using extensive management system for producing better quality poultry meat and eggs. The research work behind this gave priority to genomic background, health concerns and information of baseline data. Regarding contribution of backyard poultry towards food security, there must be a need of indigenous knowledge and domestic conditions that serve as a base for contributory research action in case of growth, management, nutrition and reproduction. There must be the need of knowledge about natural product, population and modeling process. Criteria for evaluating the utilization of natural resources, seminars on handlings the poultry in case of disease condition and optimization of whole system that are being made on complete study of domestic or local conditions will be needed to ensure significant contribution of Backyard poultry towards food security. Funding authorities, national and international organizations must take serious action on backyard poultry
as a viable research area for food security.