In this final blog in our series on the ‘hidden middle’ around poultry production, we offer a few cases from across our sites. They are categorised according to the typology presented in the first blog in this short series. They of course don’t neatly fit, and there are inevitable overlaps, but it shows how each case engages with diverse markets, as well as vendors, suppliers, transporters, financiers and others in different ways.
All these businesses are run by women, and all are accumulating from the businesses. But these are not isolated enterprises as all are connected to other family enterprises and sources of income from employment, both on and off farm. Some are connected to global networks of diaspora financing. Unlike the big corporate large-scale operations, these are all relatively small scale, but if you add them up over many businesses across many areas, this is a major contribution to overall poultry production in the country.
This article is from Zimbabweland, a blog written by IDS research fellow Ian Scoones. Zimbabweland focuses on issues related to rural livelihoods and land reform in Zimbabwe.