Maureen Stickel: Helping and educating poultry producers worldwide

aviNews International has the pleasure of speaking with Ms. Maureen Stickel from the World Poultry Foundation to learn about the goals, challenges, impact, global initiatives, and current work helping poultry producers worldwide.  Ms. Maureen has a bachelor’s degree in International Economics from Georgetown University and a master’s in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the Director of International Program Development for the World Poultry Foundation. She leads the training strategy and execution, monitoring, and data system development and oversees the foundation’s strategic communications. Ms. Maureen said the World Poultry Foundation is a US-based non-profit 501 c3 organization. They work to improve lives globally by empowering farmers in rural areas through engagement with poultry value chains. 

• The organization focuses very much on women and youth and household nutrition. Also, they place heavy emphasis on training in all their work.

One of the goals of the foundation is to promote economic development in emerging markets outside the United States with regard to poultry. Some of their first initiatives were focused on training poultry farmers and particularly layers in Russia, actually, as a measure of political goodwill soon [register] after the fall of the USSR was a long time ago. But, currently, they are reshifted, rebranded, and refocused their energy, and now the organization works globally. So, most of their current work is in Africa, where the need is greatest. Ms. Stickel also indicated they are a small team focused on improving lives through poultry, and their programs have since expanded as well. The World Poultry Foundation has many training and initiatives aligned with its original mission. Additionally, they work with private partners to develop value chains in rural areas targeting those rural households. Other discussed questions were:

• What are the vision and mission of the organization?
• What are the global initiatives you are working on?
• Do you have any research projects with the communities? And are those projects linked to universities?
• How many people and from which countries have benefited from your programs?
• What is the plan for the foundation for 2023?

If you want to learn more about this organization, please see the attached PDF. To watch the full interview go to the video