Impact of poultry interventions on
household nutrition in Tanzania
and lessons learnt along the way
Land O’Lakes/ILRI Animal Source Foods for Nutrition Impact
workshop, Nairobi, 4 May 2017
Robyn Alders, AO
School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Charles Perkins Centre,
University of Sydney

Acknowledgements
• Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research
(ACIAR)
• Project partners in Tanzania, Zambia, UK and Australia
• Land O’Lakes
• International Livestock Research Institute

Strengthening food and nutrition security through family poultry and
crop integration in Tanzania and Zambia (Nkuku4U; FSC/2012/023)
Research aims:
1) To reduce childhood undernutrition by
analysing and testing opportunities to
enhance the key role that women play
in improving poultry and crop
integration and efficiency to
strengthen household nutrition.
2) To assess if strategic investments in
animal health can contribute positively
to improved human health.
http://sydney.edu.au/vetscience/research/Nkuku4U/

Providing nutritious food across the seasons in agriculturally
resource-limiting situations
Dry season Wet season
Cereal availability
Hunger period
Village chicken
numbers – no ND*
control
* ND = Newcastle disease
Village chicken
numbers – with ND*
control

Project objectives
1. To assess the existing family poultry-crop systems and
poultry value chains.
2. To test appropriate interventions for improving the
integration and efficiency of family poultry/crop
systems and poultry value chains.
3. To assess the role of women and impact of improved
family poultry-crop systems interventions on
childhood undernutrition.
4. To support capacity building of and catalyse strategic
long-term partnerships between key institutions and
individuals associated with family poultry, food
security, and sustainable agriculture.
5

Our Project Team
6
Tanzania
Tanzania Veterinary Laboratory Agency
Tanzania Food and Nutrition Centre
Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Dar es Salaam University
Muhumbili University of Health and Allied Sciences
Zambia
Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock
Ministry of Health (Public Health)
National Commission for Food and
Nutrition
University of Zambia
Australia
USyd School of Public Health
Nutritional Epidemiologist
Biostatistician
USyd Faculty of Agriculture and Environment
Post Harvest Specialist
USyd Faculty of Veterinary Science
Vet Public Health Epidemiologist
Village Poultry Health and Production Specialist
International
Royal Veterinary College, London
One Health Economist
Veterinary Ecologist
KYEEMA Foundation
Social Anthropologist
Veterinary Laboratory and Cold Chain
Specialist
Charles Perkins Centre Healthy
Food Systems Project Node

Nkuku4U experimental design
• Five-year interdisciplinary project (Feb 2014 – Jan 2019)
• Human ethics approval by the Tanzanian National Medical
Research Institute, Zambian Tropical Disease Research Centre
Ethics Review Committee and USyd HREC
• Cluster randomised controlled trial
o Newcastle disease (ND) vaccination
o Range of crop interventions
• Mixed methodology involving interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral
team
o Questionnaires (Maternal & child health & nutrition; Household livelihoods)
o Participatory Rural Appraisal
o Maternal and child anthropometry
o Two-weekly collection: child health status, breastfeeding & chicken numbers
Kyeema/Bagnol
Kyeema/Alders

Cluster interventions grouped around Health Centres
Talking points:
1) Why did we cluster
around health centres?
2) Ethics of delayed
interventions

TANZANIA
Iwondo
Ward
Majiri
Ward
Sanza
Ward
Manyoni District,
Singida Region
Mpwapwa District,
Dodoma Region
ZAMBIA
Bundabunda
Ward Rufunsa
Ward
Rufunsa District, Lusaka Province
Project Sites

Resource-limiting settings
Geographical
• Low rainfall areas
• Inhospitable climate and
weather variability
• Poor soil
Temporal
• Rainfall seasons
• Long term climate changes
• Natural disasters
Community
• Markets and roads
• Electricity, sanitation and power
• Telecommunications
• Political economy
• Government policies
Household
• Access to information
• Access to resources/assets
• Decision-making power
ECOLOGICAL DETERMINANTS SOCIAL DETERMINANTS

Tanzanian Food and Nutrition Centre, 2014
Challenges for women in resource-limiting settings
Environment where breastfeeding
women live
Nutritional information for
breastfeeding women
Alders, 2014
Alders, 2014

Key design elements
• Randomised study – increasing understanding of the research benefits of
randomisation as compared to convenience sampling
• Gender-sensitive and participatory methodologies – increasing
understanding of the research benefits of seeking to work with and
understand the perspectives of both men and women
• Nutrition-sensitive agriculture, landscapes and value chains – focus on
nutritional quality and density and not solely weight or volume of food
• Implemented by government frontline agencies

Key achievements
• Good relations established and maintained with District Councils and
community leaders in Sanza, Majiri, Iwondo, Rufunsa and Bundabunda Wards
• Fabulous contributions by graduate students, community assistants and
community vaccinators
• Completion of ACIAR small research activity ‘Developing a model for
understanding and promoting dietary diversity in Zambia’ in Zambia
(designed to overcome shortcomings of original dietary diversity
questionnaire which had been taken from the DHS survey tool)
• Interdisciplinary research team beginning to function

Key challenges
• USyd academic calendar overlaps with key periods in the agricultural calendars in
project sites
• Disruption due to significant and relatively frequent changes to political and
administrative management in one country
• Poor rains, floods and associated poor harvest across both project sites
[Severely malnourished or anaemic (Haemoglobin level < 7.0g/dl) mothers and children must be
referred and to the nearest health facility that can treat the condition. They are then removed as an
enrolled household.]
• Food traditions and beliefs – in relation to the consumption of eggs
• Research design – sample size, tools, timeframe
• Interdisciplinary research – when is it required and what goes before it?
• Higher research question – can human nutrition be improved via investments in agriculture and
animal health? How to meaningfully engage with the Ministry of Finance?

When is a chicken egg not a chicken egg?

Rainfall data from Sanza Ward

It didn’t rain … and then

It didn’t rain … and then
it poured !!!

Interdisciplinary science
• Requires breaking down barriers between fields to build
common ground
• “Comes from the realization that there are pressing questions
or problems that cannot be adequately addressed by people
from just one discipline”
• “Interdisciplinary science takes longer than conventional
projects, and that makes it more expensive”
• “True interdisciplinary science cannot be rushed”
Nature 525: 289–290 (17 September 2015)

Preliminary findings – Height for age Z scores (i)
Table 1: Significance of associations between livestock ownership and children’s
height-for-age Z-scores (HAZ) based on longitudinal analyses of varying
duration, within multivariable models
[Multivariable linear mixed model. Outcome variable: Child HAZ for six-month periods to May 2016.
Sanza Ward n = 229; Majiri Ward n = 274; de Bruyn et al. 2017]

Preliminary findings – Height for age Z scores (ii)
Table 2: Predicted means (SE) for child HAZ according to chicken ownership and
overnight housing location, within multivariable model (May 2014 – May 2016)
Suggestive relationship
between chicken
ownership and improved
child growth
(De Bruyn et al. 2017)

Preliminary findings – Height for age Z scores (iii)
Height for age Z
scores known to
vary by:
• Age
• Gender
(De Bruyn et al. 2017)

Can close contact with chickens cause problems?
• Recent concerns that poultry manure can contribute to
diarrhoea, enteropathy and restricted growth in children
• Findings based on interrogation of secondary data bases in
some Sub-Saharan African countries (Headey and Hirvonen
2016)
• No association between chicken ownership and restricted
growth in children in our data
• Next question: Is the location of overnight housing of village
chickens associated with diarrhoea frequency in children?

Can close contact with chickens cause problems?
Multivariable analysis of our project data on two-weekly reports
of diarrhoea in enrolled children and location of overnight
chicken housing indicates:
No significant relationship between chicken ownership and
overnight chicken housing location (inside and outside human
dwellings) and diarrhoea frequency in children (p=0.6)
Why?
• Different breeds?
• Different production systems? (De Bruyn et al. 2017)

Assessing the impact of animal ownership on maternal
nutrition in Sanza and Majiri Wards, Central Tanzania
3. Ownership of fowl (p = 0.059)
BMI higher with fowls
1. Month of data collection (p < 0.001)*
BMI higher in November than May
BMI of non-pregnant women (n = 429) significantly influenced by:
4. Toilet Facilities (p = 0.069)*
BMI higher with improved facilities
2. Water source (p = 0.021)*
BMI higher with improved sources
BMI (1. linear mixed effects LME model
2. ANOVA of linear mixed model
Borges 2016)
No associations found with:
• ownership of large
ruminants, small
ruminants and pigs
• Marital status
• Education level

Associated student projects
• Advantages and disadvantages of using egg shells as a dietary calcium source: a
Delphi survey - Hayley Yeung (MND candidate)
• Prevalence and public health risks associated with bacterial pathogens of food
safety importance in rural chickens in Tanzania - Elpidius Rukambile (MVSc
candidate; John Allwright Fellow)
• Determining susceptibility of village chickens to aflatoxin exposure and
contamination of village grains and village chicken products in Tanzania - Godfrey
Magoke (PhD candidate, Australia Award Fellow; currently conducting field work in
Tanzania)
• Assessing the impact of animal ownership on maternal nutrition in Sanza and
Majiri Wards, Central Tanzania – Sasha Borges (AVBS; 1st class honours)
• Healthy chickens, Healthy children: Sustainable contributions to infant nutrition
through the control of Newcastle disease in village poultry - Julia de Bruyn (PhD
candidate)

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