A local innovation identified by PROFEIS-Mali has been published by the FAO in its series on “Good practices for family poultry production”. The document describes the motivation of a young resource-poor farmer – 31-year old Mr Nouhoum Traoré – to innovate and gives specific details about the preparation and use of the clay incubator for guinea fowl farming. The local innovator developed his idea to incubate up to 400 eggs at a time when he noted the high demand for guinea fowl and its high price. The incubator can be easily built by other farmers, as it is made from locally available materials. The farmer innovator is willing to share his idea and teach other farmers: about 50 farmers in 30 villages in Mali have already built a similar incubator. Now the young man’s idea is being shared worldwide. PROFEIS-Mali sees room to improve the local innovation through collaboration of guinea fowl farmers with agricultural researchers in a process of Participatory Innovation Development (PID).
The document can be found here: http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/aq629e/aq629e.pdf
