This report provides a schematic overview of the supply chain and resource flows for three
models of poultry production: backyard producer, medium contractor, and industrial. By
elucidating the vertical and horizontal linkages that bind these actors into a web of formal and
informal economic relationships, we want to facilitate better understanding of how actors will be
affected by changes in policy regulation or shocks to the sector. For the Thai poultry sector, this
is important for several reasons. Large scale industrial poultry production is one of the economy’s
most important sources of animal-derived food, employment, and income. At the other extreme,
smallholder backyard production remains nearly ubiquitous across an extensive low income rural
population. The former group is tied to some of the most important food industries in the
economy, and the health of the industrial sector is critical to the country’s trade and urban living
standards. The latter group is linked through local livestock markets to low income networks of
small enterprises that spread pro-poor multiplier effects across most of the country’s diverse land
area.