Ethiopia is the second most populated country on the African continent, with a population of almost 118 million, only behind Nigeria, which has 211 million inhabitants. It is estimated that 78% of this population lives in rural areas, with agriculture and livestock being its main source of income, since more than 67% of the country’s population depends on it.

Located in East Africa, Ethiopia has currently a developing economy, whose GDP has increased by 6.1% in 2020. Poultry production in Ethiopia is expected to growth a 14% by 2025.

Current poultry production in Ethiopia is estimated at 57 million birds, of these the 34.26% correspond to laying hens and 32.86% to broilers, which produce around 77,000 tons of meat annually. There are two important characteristics to highlight in Ethiopia´s poultry production: the type of farms and the use of indigenous breeds.

Most of the poultry farms in Ethiopia are of domestic, about 89%, in which each poultry farmer has between 5 and 20 laying hens that satisfy self-consumption and only a small part is sold locally. About 8% of farms correspond to semi-intensive farms, with between 50 and 200 birds, and in which environmental parameters and feeding are slightly more controlled. Finally, only one 3% of poultry farms in Ethiopia are intensive, with more than 10,000 birds per cycle and in which all parameters are properly controlled.

On the other hand, it is noteworthy that a large part of poultry farms use native breeds, around 78.85%, while 12.03% and 9.11% correspond to hybrid and imported breeds respectively. The introduction of imported breeds, which allow to obtain a higher performance has increased in recent years, for example, in the case of laying hens the percentage of imported breeds, whose laying rate is up to 85% higher than native breeds, has gone from 3% in 2012-2013 to 18% nowadays.

These native breeds receive different names according to their geographical location and their external morphology, some of these breeds are: Chefe, Jarso, Tilili, Horro, Tepi, Gelila, Debre-Elias, Melo-Hamusit, among others.

Poultry production is widely distributed throughout the country, been the regions of Oromia and Amhara the ones with a higher rate of poultry farms, followed by the SNNP and Tigray regions respectively (figure 2).

Ethiopia has one of the lowest chicken meat and eggs consumption per capita in the world, and well below the average of other African countries, with only 2.85 kg of meat and 57 eggs consumed per person on average annually.

However, as has happened in other developing countries, a middle class is developing in the country, with greater economic capacity, which will lead to an increase in the consumption of poultry products, with high nutritional value, which will favor the development of the poultry industry in the coming years.