**3. The resilient strategies deployed by smallholder' poultry actors**

### **3.1 The concept of resilient strategies**

Resilience is the ability or capacity to recover quickly from difficulties or toughness [5]. The day-to-day activities of smallholders' poultry have some embedded risk factors within its system. These risks are operational as well as managerial inclined. Research and development have provided series of information on how to mitigate the operational challenges with the recent effort on climate change adaptability in livestock system. Also, there have been few managerial information on poultry productivity in which marketing system is key. The concept of cluster and cooperative development are mitigating strategies to market of smallholder poultry value chain. Thus, most operators within this sector have been adopting this market innovation.

In spite of these background, there are several interaction of complex concepts relating to challenges within smallholder poultry system. Thus, a single approach cannot be sufficient to unravel resilient strategies necessary for productivity of the sector. Hence, three theories were exposed by [5], which are socio-ecological system (SES) framework [11], the resilience theory [12] and technology affordances [13]. The SES framework suggests that a smallholder poultry system is made up of primary and secondary attributes. These attributes interact to produce specific outcomes [5]. Consequently, these attributes and interactions within the sectors are key determinants of the challenges faced by the actors and subsequently coping strategies they deployed. The work of [12] opined that applying the resilience theory helps to understand "individual variations in response to risk". Thus, resilience theory provided the understanding for smallholder poultry system actors to identify their system using SES framework, react to challenges and respond accordingly. Conclusively, availability and affordance of technologies [13] needed to support productivity is key to sustainability of smallholder poultry actors. Hence, access to technologies and information, infrastructure, environmental and markets knowledge are strong indicators to sustainable smallholder poultry value chain [5].

Resilience can provide a philosophical and methodological basis to address systemic risk [9] in a more useful way than traditional approaches based on risk management. Risk assessment and management are used to harden components of the systems affected by specific threats, yet such approaches are often prohibitively expensive to implement, and do not address cascading effects of system failure. Resilience approaches emphasize the characteristics and capabilities that allow a system to recover from and adapt to disruption. Therefore, resilience as the ability of a system to perform four functions with respect to adverse events: 1. planning and preparation; 2. absorption; 3. recovery; and 4. adaptation [9]. On the other hand, smallholder actors often lack the understanding of risk definition, which increases their susceptibility to all forms of risk [5, 14].

### **3.2 The challenges and resilient strategies of smallholder poultry sector (SPS)**

In developing economy, studies have identified cost of investment, inadequate infrastructure, and access to technical information, inputs and support systems,

### *The Resilience Strategies of Smallholders' Poultry Actors DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109494*

quality of manpower, nature of output pricing and informal market system as constraints to sustainable productivity of SPS. Lack of agribusiness management skill and poor access to information about the technicality of the poultry value addition process also compound the problems of sustainability of SPS. In some disadvantaged communities, market or price risk is high, such that, producers might not have access to buyers, hence, disposing the actors to sell products at any available price well below cost of production. Unpredictability of the system of production can also cause a challenge where products are of low quality and increase mortality rate which in turn lower income. Lack of policies direction, either directly or and indirectly can lead to theft or direct loss of poultry inputs and output. Policies can as well be linked to poor management skill on the part of the owner. Traditional belief, in terms of ownership and gender understanding, where female member of household might not claim ownership of poultry stocks despite her role in caring for the poultry can predisposed SPS to weak or no productivity.

Consequently, these constraints have limit the livelihood of actors, it has impaired there status and made them vulnerable despite their continuous engagement in smallholder poultry activities over the years. However, these actors have been dealing with the minimum capacity that their limited capital and expertise can cope with as a resilient strategy. They do not want to overstretch their scale, sometimes, due to lack of knowledge, non-accessible agricultural loans and input linkages. On poor infrastructure, these actors have design community-effort or participation as a resilience mechanism to remain in the business of poultry production. In some farm settlement, they jointly own electric power generators through cooperative system to solve power need of their business. In some large farm community, they contribute to buy electric power generating transformers to satisfy the power needs. Also, they contribute to have accessible roads through regular grading and maintenance for ease of movement of their poultry inputs and outputs.

Recently, smallholders' poultry actors have started embracing membership in farmers' cooperative societies as a resilient strategy to indirectly access extension services to improve their agribusiness management skill, have access to input linkages, understand group dynamics for relationship among themselves and customers, as well as get information about pricing and market system, etc. The cooperative society has the potential to harness new system or technology from research and development agencies as well as private companies who are into service of poultry inputs suppliers or dealers. The cooperative society when organized and structured, has potential to benefit from cluster and off-taking/ contract agribusiness modeling for value addition, marketing and selling strategies of products all year round and linkages to inputs like feeds, drugs, day-old chicks (DOCs), etc. The cooperative society is also disposed to business information on the utilization of credit and thrift funding services to support members' business credit needs with single-digit interest rates. Beyond cooperative membership as resilience strategy, some smallholder poultry actors also engage in trading activities as supplementary livelihood to poultry farming business within their community. They do trade operations like selling other food items like rice, beans, smoked chicken and fish, eggs, groundnut oil, and other household foods within their communities in order to improve their daily revenue and achieve a higher social position. Also, some poultry farmers diversify into sales of poultry inputs like feeds, simple medicament and equipment and freshly processed chicken and or smoked chicken.
