TREND ANALYSIS OF POULTRY POPULATION GROWTHAND DISTRIBUTION IN ETHIOPIA

The poultry population of Ethiopia is almost entirely composed of indigenous chicken, and recent estimates showed that 78.85%, 12.02%, and 9.11% are indigenous, hybrids, and exotic poultry, respectively. Poultry plays important roles in terms of generating employment opportunities, improving family nutrition, and empowering women. The growth of the poultry population over the year has almost stagnated because of high poultry mortality and the limited expansion of commercial poultry production. Therefore, this trend was initiated to analyze the trends of poultry population growth and distribution in Ethiopia. Data on annual poultry population growth and distribution in Ethiopia for the period of 2008 to 2021 were collected from the Central Statistical Agency (CSA). A trend test was carried out using the non-parametric Mann-Kendall’s trend test packaged in XLstat. The outcome of this trend indicated that the poultry population increased significantly in some regions.However, the distribution of poultry populations across the region is not uniform. The Oromia region has the most poultry, followed by Amhara, the South Nation and Nationality People of Ethiopia (SNNP), and Tigray.This is due to the availability of commercial poultry farms. Therefore, the future study should pay attention to the expansion of large-scale commercial poultry farms across the regions and the introduction of exotic poultry breeds.