admin | February 6, 2017
Our Farmer story from Ghana features an award-winning guinea fowl farmer. And our Script of the week features a drama which introduces the King of guinea fowl farmers!
Nine of ten households in northern Ghana raise guinea fowl, and the birds play a significant role in ensuring that households have enough to eat and earn a little income. Most farmers let guinea fowl forage freely. The birds forage for their own food and sleep in trees around houses.
There is high demand for both guinea fowl meat and eggs. For families in northern Ghana, guinea fowl are the first item to be sold to meet immediate needs such as farm inputs or food during the June to August lean season.
In most of northern Ghana, both men and women can own guinea fowl.
There are a number of challenges to raising guinea fowl, including: high keet mortality (young guinea fowl are called “keets”), and lack of supplementary feeding. This four-episode drama deals with the challenges of feeding guinea fowl.
You might choose to present this drama as part of your regular farming program, using voice actors to represent the speakers. You could also use this drama as inspiration to research and develop a radio program on guinea fowl in your own country.
If you choose to use this item as inspiration for creating your own program about guinea fowl, you could talk to extension agents and farmers in your area, and ask the following questions:
- Are guinea fowl raised in this area?
- Do farmers use free-range systems, or do they confine their birds for part or all of their lives?
- What are the major challenges to raising guinea fowl in your area? What solutions have been found for these challenges?
- What feeds are given to guinea fowl in this area?
As well as speaking directly to farmers and other key players in the local agriculture sector, you could use these questions as the basis for a phone-in or text-in program.