Empowering India's Rural Poor through Poultry

I am pleased to report on the progress of our poultry farming programme in Odisha, an eastern Indian State on the Bay of Bengal where I am working for Shivia and managing our operations there.

One of the first steps of the programme is to organise an orientation session for newly enrolled beneficiaries. This is an opportunity for all official staff members and farmers to introduce themselves.  As Shivia's representative, I welcome both parties whilst explaining the clear objectives and plan behind the poultry programme. This provides reassurance to our new farmers that Shivia will be there to fully support them.

In order for new farmers to fully grasp the opportunities this programme has to give, a meeting is organised between new and existing farmers who are already successfully raising chickens and earning a regular income. This is where existing farmers can share their experiences and wisdom on poultry farming. Some of the wisdom for example includes the importance of the process of drinking management for the young chicks, something which must be done with great care, as illustrated in the photo below.

Additionally, a few visits are made to homes and villages for the new farmers to fully understand poultry farming in order to be able to apply the techniques. In the photo you can see a visit to a successful farmer’s home and poultry shed where we taught new farmers temperature and feed management skills.

Teaching farmers to cultivate azolla

Azolla is a water based crop and has been widely used to fertilise rice paddies and increase rice production. Although this information was known to our farmers, we are teaching them that they can also use it for poultry farming. Azolla is now gaining popularity as a feed supplement for poultry, especially amongst livestock rearing communities in India. It has several health benefits for chickens due to its high protein, vitamin and mineral content and therefore is a beneficial asset to our poultry programme.

I am very pleased that the poultry farming programme in Odisha is making significant progress, with new farmers adopting the techniques shown to them by our existing farmers and carefully tending to their chicks.

Thank you for supporting this important programme which is helping to transform the lives of hundreds of marginalised and vulnerable families in Odisha.

Smruti Das

Assistant Consultant to Shivia

Chhaya joined our poultry farming programme in April 2022 after her husband lost his bus driving job in Kolkata during the Covid pandemic. She started with three toolkits (30 chicks) and after four months was able to earn money by selling chicken meat at the roadside. With increase in the demand for meat, she started taking more toolkits and then set up a permanent stall at the roadside. 

Gradually Chhaya diversified her small chicken shop into a grocery shop with some money from her profits in poultry farming. She also started selling chicken curry, rotis and rice to people passing by on the road. She and her husband are now busy running the shop selling various food and household items, as well as running their small café. 

Sadly, while she spent most of her time in the shop, some of her chickens got stolen and so she decided to carry on with the shop business only as it's doing so well. She plans to start her poultry farming again in a few months’ time when she can spend more time at home and her husband and son can run the shop. 

Chhaya and her family are now happily managing on the income generated through the shop enterprise. She is a perfect example of a woman in poverty who has been supported by Shivia through the poultry farming programme which acted as a stepping stone to establish a permanent income to lift her family out of poverty.

She says that she feels indebted to Shivia for providing such an excellent opportunity and values the training and handholding we have provided for her, helping her to uplift the whole family from the clutches of absolute poverty and at the mercy of debt when her husband lost his employment.   

Thank you for helping us to help Chhaya and many more women like her.

With best wishes from,

Chandrani