Strengthening food and nutrition security through family poultry and crop integration in Tanzania and Zambia

• Register: ANZCTR
• Last refreshed on: 13 March 2017
• Main ID: ACTRN12617000291381
• Date of registration: 24/02/2017
• Prospective Registration: No
• Primary sponsor: Associate Professor Robyn Alders
• Public title: Strengthening food and nutrition security through family poultry and crop integration in Tanzania and Zambia
• Scientific title: Do community-based vaccination programs against Newcastle disease in village chickens and strategic improvements to crop systems, compared to existing poultry and crop systems, improve height-for-age Z-scores in young children in rural Tanzania and Zambia?
• Date of first enrolment: 1/05/2014
• Target sample size: 1200
• Recruitment status: Active, not recruiting
• URL: http://www.anzctr.org.au/ACTRN12617000291381.aspx
• Study type: Interventional
• Study design: Randomised controlled trial Parallel
• Phase: Not Applicable

Health Condition(s) or Problem(s) studied

Childhood stunting

Intervention(s)

This is a cluster randomised controlled trial. Interventions include two components:

(1) Community-based Newcastle disease control programs
Members of participating communities, selected in consultation with local leaders, will participate in a three-day theoretical and practical training workshop to prepare them to work as “community poultry vaccinators”. Workshops will be led by government personnel, with tertiary qualifications in animal health and production, and experience in the training program in question and in approaches to adult learning who have participated in initial master trainer workshops led by USyd veterinary personnel. The thermotolerant I-2 Newcastle disease vaccine (produced by Tanzania Vaccine Institute in Tanzania and Central Veterinary Research Institute in Zambia) will be administered to chickens via eyedrop on a fee-for-service basis, during vaccination campaigns conducted every four months.

(2) Strategic interventions to improve crop production and reduce crop losses
Analysis of existing farming systems and participatory discussions with community members will inform a series of crop interventions within each project cluster, according to identified constraints to agricultural production. Interventions such as improved seed varieties and crop diversity, storage methods and cultivation and weeding practices will be demonstrated in centralised farming plots, presented during training workshops and made available to community members. One two-day training workshops will be held in each project cluster, led by government agricultural officers, with involvement of local agricultural extensionists.

No intervention will be applied to humans.

Communities will be randomised to receive or not receive village chicken ND vaccination campaigns in the first year and a crop intervention in the second year. For ethical and logistical reasons interventions will be offered to “control” (delayed intervention) communities after a delay of 12 months.