Turkeys make up just 2% of Uganda’s total poultry population — 23.5 million birds, 100% of them backyard-raised. The sector is almost entirely informal, with no organized production, no professional aggregation, and no formal market.

Yet demand for turkey in Uganda is real. It occupies a position in the protein market just behind chicken, valued for its nutrition and its cultural role in celebration meals. High mortality rates during infancy — caused by poor husbandry practices and lack of knowledge — have kept commercial turkey farming from developing.

Papoli Farmers’ Association was built as a community company — smallholder farmers collective raising turkeys together rather than alone.

PFA provides the farmers with inputs (pasture management, grains, red worms) and the knowledge to raise turkeys to maturity. It then aggregates the birds, processes them, and sells to formal buyers: supermarkets, butcheries, and hotels.

In 2019, the association produced 2,500 birds and earned $42,000 in revenues — a profitable start from a crop that the commercial sector had ignored.

Papoli Farmers’ Association organizes smallholder Ugandan turkey farmers into a collective production model — providing inputs and training, aggregating the birds at maturity, processing, and distributing to formal retail and food service buyers.