Does publishing poultry vaccination schedule increase awareness and compliance among small scale farmers? Evidence from Eastern Ghana
Loading...
Date
2023
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Cogent Food & Agriculture
Abstract
Poultry vaccination reduces birds’ mortality risk and its related eco nomic impacts. The Veterinary Services Directorate of Ghana publishes a national
poultry vaccination schedule for farmers to comply with. Yet disease outbreaks
occur, raising the question of whether poultry farmers comply with the vaccina tion protocols. This paper assesses vaccination compliance and its determinants
among small-scale farmers, using Birim Central Municipality as a case study. We
employed descriptive statistics, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance and
a Poisson count model to analyse cross-sectional data collected from 60 poultry
farmers. We find that level of awareness about vaccination is higher than the
level of compliance. The Poisson model reveals that access to veterinary services,
poultry management training, large flock size, and having experienced poultry
disease on the farm positively affect the extent of compliance with the schedule.
On the other hand, male farmers are less likely to comply than female farmers.
The most pressing constraints to poultry vaccination are inadequate access to
finance, inadequate veterinarians and high cost of veterinary services. We
recommend that poultry industry stakeholders take necessary measures to
increase farmers’ contacts with veterinary officers and intensify peer education
on vaccination.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
small-scale, poultry, vaccination, compliance, awareness