tRURAL ECONOMIC GROWTH AND SMALL-SCALE POULTRY PRODUCTION: THE ECONOMIC AND TECHNICAL CONSTRAINTS

Small-scale commercial poultry enterprises are often used in development projects to (a) improve food self-sufficiency, and (b) to generate income. The analysis of survey data gathered from the rural areas ofKwaZulu-Natal shows that the majority of small-scale poultry producers come from previously disadvantaged communities and have significantly lower enterprise growth rates than larger producers. Principal Component Analysis is used to determine underlying "dimensions " of the main technical poultry production parameters, which with the aid of a t-test indicate that management practices and equipment use are significantly different for small-scale and larger producers but that feed utilisation and disease reduction practices are similar. The results of a block-recursive regression analysis indicate that enterprise growth rate is constrained by poor access to credit, high transaction costs and unreliable local markets. Using growth linkage concepts it was found that small-scale poultry enterprises have the potential to initiate economic growth by drawing under-utilised resources such as labour into production when their products ar