Catalog

Poultry Provides Women with Livelihoods

Background

About half the population of Bangladesh, roughly 65 million people, live below the poverty line. Poverty is more extensive in rural than urban areas, and women suffer more than men.

Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with more then 800 people per square kilometer. Land is the most prized—and the most elusive—asset for the poor. Nearly half of all rural families are landless. The country’s inheritance laws and social traditions make it even more difficult for poor women to own land. At the same time, social customs deny them opportunities for employment outside the home.

With women being responsible for feeding the family in an estimated 15% of all households in Bangladesh, reducing poverty requires finding innovative ways of raising women’s status and incomes in the villages.

Nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in northern Bangladesh have hit upon one winning formula: providing microcredit opportunities and technical support to help women run poultry schemes from their homes. Women have always dominated the backyard poultry niche as a means of supplementing the family income. Traditionally, the income from poultry has been limited because of the low productivity of local hens, poor veterinary care, and a lack of quality feed for the birds.

With a little support from NGOs and funding agencies like ADB, rural women are able to invest in more profitable poultry development schemes that offer them a way out of the oppressive poverty that had been their lot for so long. Single women—widowed, divorced, or abandoned by their husbands—are able to put more food on the table, educate their children, and even save enough to lease or buy agricultural land.

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Hens Lay More Eggs

When Zainab Begum’s husband died 10 years ago, the responsibility of raising four children fell completely on her shoulders. The family owned no land and Zainab Begum could only find seasonal work, processing rice for the zamindar, the largest landowner in the area.

“Those were difficult times,” recalls Zainab Begum, her eyes clouding over. Then she smiles. “This is much better,” she says of the poultry scheme she has run in her backyard for the past 3.5 years. “I have more money. Even more importantly, I feel independent—I know I cannot be exploited now.”

Zainab Begum buys day-old chicks of the Sonali breed of hen and rears them for 8–10 weeks, then sells the older chicks to other women who continue to raise them for eggs and meat. The chicks fetch a good price because the Sonali hens lay up to three times as many eggs as local hens. Zainab Begum has raised 16 batches since she started her new business with a small loan from the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), one of ADB’s NGO partners under the Participatory Livestock Development Project. She has taken and repaid three loans along the way, using the money to expand her business a little at a time. Two years ago she also bought a small plot of agricultural land.

The project follows a livestock development model created by BRAC. ADB is supporting the project with a concessional loan of $19.7 million. The loan helps fund microcredit schemes for livestock development run by BRAC and nine other Bangladeshi NGOs.

The $40 million project is also supported by the Danish International Development Assistance (Danida), the Government of Bangladesh, a funding agency for NGOs, the 10 participating NGOs, and the beneficiaries themselves.

The project trains women in raising Sonali chicks as well as local hens and ducks, managing poultry production and sales, and providing veterinary care.

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Poultry “Doctor” Raises Her Status

Rezia Khatun is a poultry worker who looks after the health of chicks in 11 villages. She charges a service fee to vaccinate the birds. When required, she also provides medicines. “Sometimes people pay me in eggs or vegetables,” she laughs. “I live in this area—I can’t quarrel with them, so I accept that, too.”

The cash income is crucial to Rezia Khatun, a widow with six children, three of them still in school. But the social interaction is also important. Her work, which she took up after her husband’s death, has improved her status in the village. Many of the villagers now call her “doctor.”

Over 3 years, Rezia Khatun has made enough money to buy a goat and a small piece of land. For the first time in her life, she has some tangible assets. She has built a “permanent” home to replace her old mud and straw hut. “It has a tin roof and real walls,” she says with justifiable pride.

Zainab Begum and Rezia Khatun are among 460,000 people, mainly women, supported by the project. In an area where an estimated 58% of the population lives in extreme poverty, the project reaches the most vulnerable group of all: poor rural women with no land and little opportunity to work outside the home.

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Learn more about ADB's partnership with Bangladesh