Malawi's Responsive Village Egg model
Since 2009, M-Livestock Consultants (www.mlivestockconsultants.webs.com) has been conducting a pilot phase of Malawi’s Responsive Village Egg Model at Geni Village, T/A Mavwere, Mchinji District, Malawi. This is a community revolving system of poultry rearing that initially provided 10 households each with chickens under a pass-on-the-benefits scheme as an effective means of providing income and food security. The model has since been scaled up to improve accessibility of fertile eggs of Tombi Village Layer 2010 to all villagers. It is envisaged that in 3 years the number of beneficiaries will have grown to around 750 households. In case of one of the model beneficiaries, Sara Lusha of Kamera in Gumulira Millennium Village Project, her household of 6 members gets an addition household income of more than $2 (MK300) by selling 12 eggs and consumes 6 eggs per day out of a stock of 25 layers. Sara uses the high quality chicken manure to grow different vegetables and maize for food for her family. Sara is the only women farmer producing eggs in a village of 1,200 households with 7,000 people in Gumulira Millennium Village.
Currently, the model beneficiaries are passing on the gift of fertile eggs to 72 Households of people living with AIDs under Tikondane CBO in Gumulira Millennium Village. These are eggs from crossing Black Australorp and Hyline Commercial Layer. The breeding program is done by village breeders. Each pass-on beneficiary household receives a gift of 14 fertile eggs for hatching with local hens to produce Tombi Village Layer 2010 Chicks.
On 13th March 2010 a pass-on ceremony for the Village Egg Model took place in Mchinji. The women breeders donated 115 fertile eggs and 16 pullets of the new breed of Tombi Village Egg Layer 2010 to 19 people living with HIV and AIDS of Tikondane CBO in the Millennium Villages Project.
