By Md Aynal Haque

RAJSHAHI, Feb 3, 2024 (BSS)- Anuman Ara Begum, 35, wife of a day-laborer Abu
Baker, is now at the threshold of eradicating her long-lasting poverty
through household-based chicken rearing through modern methods.

Begum, mother of three daughters and a son and also a resident of Muraripur
village under Paba upazila of the district, embarked on the mission of
achieving self reliance early 2018.

At the preliminary stage, she received training on chicken rearing along with
its proper feeding, vaccination and marketing by the Local Service Providers
(LSPs).

During the last couple of months, she earned Taka 1,800 after selling eggs
and chicken. She told BSS that both demand and market price of native chicken
variety is higher than that of others.

After becoming a part of her 25-member local cooperative society, Anuman
Begum enjoys some extra privileges of poultry rearing and marketing.
 
Her eldest daughter Nadira Akter, a student of class 10 of her village
school, gets all institutional expenses from her mother's earnings that
encourage her to higher education in the days ahead.

Apart from Begum, many other households of the poverty-stricken community are
involved in the poultry rearing activities.

Tazkera Akhter, local community leader, said all the organised members are
very much optimistic about improving their living and livelihood conditions
through the poultry rearing value chain.

The households have learnt how to promote the community business after the
best uses of the local resources and services.

Talking to BSS, the organised women urged the local service providers to
supply modern technology and other requisite facilities to their activities
for making the business profitable and sustainable.

More than 8,500 poor and extreme poor households, most of them women, have
developed 240 chicken rearing societies in 17 upazilas of Rajshahi,
Chapainawabganj, Natore and Pabna districts.
 
Through establishing service contract points in their respective areas more
than 750 LSPs deliver requisite training, advice and inputs services to the
producers after taking training on chicken rearing.

 
Various public institutions and agencies provide extension services to the
LSPs, who earn on an average Taka 1,500 per month. In practice, they
disseminate different modern technology to the producers through setting
demonstration plots within the working households.

"We organise community meetings with assistance of private companies for
building awareness about quality products regularly," said Nizamul Huda, an
LSP of Puthiya.

The LSPs have good collaboration and linkage with line departments and
private companies as they establish functional linkage with product based
traders, pickers and private companies.

Dr Zulfiker Muhammad Akter Hossain, District Livestock Officer, told BSS that
many of the rural households have now become involved in chicken rearing
commercially through various GO-NGO level interventions which is a good sign
for eradicating rural poverty.

"Basically, a silent revolution has taken place in poultry rearing," he
added.
 
In practice, most of the rural households, including the marginalized and
ethnic minorities, are habituated to poultry birds farming as the means of
meeting protein demands as well as overcoming financial crises through
selling those.

On behalf of the government, various need-based services are being provided
to the grassroots level poultry farmers for making their ventures profitable
and sustainable.

As a whole, the poultry bird farmers are contributing a lot towards meeting
protein demands as chicken and egg are the vital source of protein.