Backyard Poultry, Nabarangpur

Bangapalli village is back to country bird rearing

Backyard poultry with Desi breeds (country birds) is easy to manage, less risky and can generate better incomes, for the resource poor households. It has the potential to reduce hunger, eradicate malnutrition and create employment opportunities also.
In 2017, Harsha Trust, with the objective of improving the income and nutrition of the poor (landless and marginal farmers) households using women’s institutions such as SHGs, Cluster level Federation (CLF) as a medium was initiated. The interventions include improvement of production systems, vaccination and healthcare services for livestock. The programme has been initiated in 32 clusters of 45 villages of Nabarangpur districts.

In 2017, Harsha Trust, with the objective of improving the income and nutrition of the poor (landless and marginal farmers) households using women’s institutions such as SHGs, Cluster level Federation (CLF) as a medium was initiated. The interventions include improvement of production systems, vaccination and healthcare services for livestock. The programme has been initiated in 32 clusters of 45 villages of Nabarangpur districts.

The Initiative:

Bangapalli is one among the 45 villages of Nabarangpur Block where Harsha Trust initiated a project supported by EYF (Ernst & Young Foundation) from April 2017. The village is 7.5 km from the Block as well as District HQ. It is an adivasi dominated village with a smattering of SC and OBC households. The adivasis are Parajas. Most of the families are dependent on agriculture and wage labour. Some households were additionally into rearing desi poultry in their backyards, in the past for household consumption. However, they had to discontinue or resort to rearing less number of birds for various reasons – lack of supply of healthy chicks, proper sheds, high mortality rate due to lack of knowledge of good practices, limited access to health care facilities. Thus, the communities switched to consuming commercially produced broiler chicken/layer meat and eggs which was difficult with their limited incomes.

Activities under taken

• Village level survey;
• Orientation to CLFs and SHGs on ‘Economy of Poultry Rearing’;
• Exposure to successful poultry farms;
• Village level planning;
• Wall Painting;
• Training of cadre on vaccination;
• Vaccination of poultry on a regular basis;

Access to health care and other services

Poultry health services of the government are few and far between in the district. To overcome this, the project decided to train local para- veterinarians. Selected members, preferably women, were trained for 2 – 3 days on health care practices related to Poultry and Goat/Sheep at regular intervals. These para-veterinarians with support from Harsha Trust and limited services of the government veterinary officials provide livestock health services to the communities. Rs 4/- is paid to the para- veterinarian for their services for one bird/year per service. Two services are provided- De-worming & Vaccination each four times a year. This also generates employment for the local cadre. Since the deployment of para- veterinarians, the adoption of prescribed health care practices for livestock has increased and reduced the mortality rate of birds.

Impact on Bangapalli:

With all the households of the village rearing backyard poultry, the traditional practice of rearing desi (country) breeds has restarted at Bangapali village. The local communities are able to consume eggs and meat produced in their backyard, on a regular basis adding to their nutrition. The chicken and eggs, produced in the backyards are healthier in comparison to commercially produced chicken, thus ensuring better health for the families. They have also begun to sell their produce.

Economics of breeding country birds on Nila Bhatra:

Impact on the village: