“How old do you think these chickens are?” Levy Phiri asked the crowd, after scooping four multicolored birds out of a crate and setting them down in the courtyard outside the primary school in Kambvumbe, a village in Zambia’s rural Eastern Province.
The roughly 200 people who came out in the midafternoon heat for this presentation held by the country’s largest chicken hatchery and processor craned their necks for a better look.
A year, someone called out. Fourteen months, another suggested.
Mr. Phiri, a field representative for the company, Hybrid Poultry Farm, paused a moment for suspense. They are just six weeks, he revealed. Surprise rippled through the gathering.
These are not just any chickens. They are Zambro chickens, birds specifically bred to thrive in the toughest climates. A dual-purpose chicken — more on that later — that needs less water and feed, grows faster and fatter and lays more eggs. A chicken that is more resistant to disease and costs less to raise than many of the village chickens found in backyard coops.
Such a chicken is important in countries like Zambia, which is increasingly battered by extreme weather. Last season, the worst drought in four decades devastated crops and livestock. Food shortages in rural areas were rampant in a country that already had one of the highest rates of malnutrition and stunted children in sub-Saharan Africa.
“How many people ate an egg in the last day?” Mr. Phiri asked the crowd at the Kambvumbe school. In the last week? The last two weeks? Finally one person raised a hand.
The Zambro initiative is sponsored by a partnership between Hybrid, based in Lusaka, and the World Poultry Foundation, a nonprofit in Atlanta that received funding from the Gates Foundation and the Qatar Fund for Development. The enterprises they are supporting are not charities, but private ventures that depend on turning a profit.
“It is essential that it is a viable business,” said Maureen Stickel, director of international poultry development at the foundation. “We never give away chickens.”
The importance of self-sustaining programs in Zambia and other poor countries is more pressing now that President Trump has taken a hacksaw to America’s foreign aid programs. For years, sub-Saharan Africa was a primary recipient of U.S. aid. Last year, the region received $12.7 billion. Billions more were spent on other worldwide programs related to health and climate resilience that also largely benefited Africa.
Britain, too, is cutting back on foreign assistance to finance increases in its military spending.
Dual-purpose breeds started spreading to Africa in the mid-2010s. There were Noilers in Nigeria, Tanbros in Tanzania, Kenbros in Kenya. The World Poultry Foundation began helping to distribute these breeds in 2016.
Hybrid teamed up once before with another nonprofit organization that donated chickens to farmers. But when the funding ended, so did the project, said Simon Wilde, Hybrid’s managing director. “Anybody can come in and throw money at it,” he explained. You’ve got to teach farmers, he said — do this, not that, and this is how you make money.
The World Poultry Foundation has developed a viable business model for poor farmers in places with little electricity, indoor plumbing or access to transportation. The organization then provides upfront funding for a maximum of five years to help get a small chicken business off the ground.
“As they start making profit, we move into the background,” said Randall Ennis, chief executive of the poultry foundation.
So far the foundation has contributed to successful businesses in Nigeria, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Senegal and Madagascar, helping an estimated 2.7 million households, Mr. Ennis said. Similar business models supporting dual-purpose chickens can be found throughout the continent.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that this is an absolutely transformative program for these rural sectors,” Mr. Ennis said.
The foundation is looking to expand to other continents. Eighty percent of the people living in rural areas across the globe raise chickens in the backyard; a majority of them are women.
If you are accustomed to buying your chicken plucked and plastic-wrapped, the idea of a dual-purpose chicken may be confusing. In the world of commercial poultry, chickens are essentially grouped into one of two categories: layers and broilers. Chickens that either reliably produce an egg every day or quickly plump up to be eaten.
A chicken that can be used to both lay eggs and be eaten can be something of a wonder. Especially when that same bird consumes less water and supplements its diet by foraging for termites and grasshoppers.
Still, getting subsistence farmers to take a risk and invest their meager savings in a new breed and develop a new market takes outreach, training and marketing services.
Hybrid learned the hard way. Before its partnership with the foundation, it tried to market a dual-purpose bird that was different from the Zambro. That breed had brown feathers, which made it look just like a local village chicken that no longer produced eggs. Buyers were confused.
The failure underscored the need for field representatives to work closely with the brooders, who raise the chicks for the first four weeks, as well as the small-scale producers, who buy the month-old birds and then sell the chickens, their eggs or both.
Elisha Zakoka, a field rep in the Rufunsa district, visits each client once a week and calls twice a week to check in. If there are problems, he comes more often.
“He started mentoring me,” said Phidelis Kayaya, a brooder who started raising Zambros last year. Mr. Zakoka taught him, for example, how to vaccinate the chicks. He explained why feeders should be placed atop bricks, so the chickens don’t have to bend their necks to eat, which impairs chewing and digestion.
Mr. Kayaya previously raised broilers. “They eat too much, and they are prone to diseases,” he said, explaining why he switched. The Zambros’ need for less water also makes a difference. Every day, Mr. Kayaya must walk a third of a mile to a hand pump, fill a large metal drum and then roll it home so his family can have water.
Mr. Kayaya had recently bought 1,000 Zambro chicks and started selling door to door. With a motorized three-wheeled vehicle, he could offer free delivery — a big selling point in a large rural area where paved roads are an anomaly and cars are scarce.
At the four-week mark, though, he was able to sell only 700 of the flock. So he waited a few more weeks for the remaining ones to grow fat enough to sell as broilers. Meanwhile, with the eggs, Mr. Kayaya said, his family has been eating better.
Mr. Zakoka, the field rep, noted that the chickens were underweight. Mr. Kayaya nodded. He said he had cut their daily feed because he couldn’t afford more. Last year’s drought wiped out crops and pushed most farmers in the region to the brink. A national debt crisis added strain. Animal medicine and feed are expensive or impossible to find.
The outlook for this year was much better: The rains had come, and everyone was optimistic about the April harvest.
In Petauke, Vincent Musonda’s three-week-old chicks were at the peak of health. Mr. Musonda used to raise broilers, but said the mortality rate was sometimes as high as 15 percent. Of the 255 Zambros he started with, only one had died, and that was when a suspended feeder fell on it.
Mr. Wilde, Hybrid’s managing director, conceded that the drought had slowed the pilot program’s start. But he was confident that with this harvest, sales would pick up.
In Zambia, Hybrid now plans to expand the program to another province up north.
Farmers like Mr. Kayaya heard about Zambros from the big billboards Hybrid erected outside village markets, from social media, WhatsApp groups and radio advertisements, from the field reps and friends, and introductory marketing meetings like the one held at the Kambvumbe primary school near Petauke.
Initially just a handful of people had gathered for the meeting last month at the school. But the arrival of two new, large cars bouncing across the dirt road, carrying the Hybrid team, attracted stares and excited chatter from passers-by and students heading home. Then Hybrid began handing out bold royal blue kitenge, the classic woman’s wrap, featuring the company’s logo showing bright yellow and white chickens.
Husbands called their wives, and women called their neighbors: Come quickly. There’s swag.
At the end, roughly 200 people showed up for what turned out to be a mix between a tent revival, a “Wolf of Wall Street”-style marketing pitch and a Tupperware party. There was an opening prayer, a few jokes, testimonials and lemon cookies. There were promises that the Zambros would eventually produce extra cash, envious neighbors and better-fed children.
By the end of the meeting, two dozen people had signed up to buy chickens, hoping that all of those promises would come true.
