A Socioeconomic Study on Household Poultry Rearing in Some Selected Areas of Mymensingh District in Bangladesh

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1 Scholars Knowledge is Power May 2012 Volume 1, Issue 2 Article #04 IRJALS Research Paper ISSN: A Socioeconomic Study on Household Poultry Rearing in Some Selected Areas of Mymensingh District in Bangladesh Md. Saidur Rahman 1*, Habiba Pervin Halcyan 2 1 Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh. 2 MS student, Department of Agricultural Economics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh *Corresponding author s saidurbau@yahoo.com Abstract The study is conducted to identify the socio-economic characteristics of the household poultry farmers and its impact on livelihood improvement. Sixty household poultry farmers were selected from Sadar upazila and Trishal upazila under Mymensingh district. Tabular as well as econometric methods were applied to analyze the data. Attempts were made to identify socio-economic characteristics, calculation of costs, returns, and find out the problems faced by the household poultry farmers. The study revealed that majority of the household poultry farmers were of the age group of years and the highest number had secondary education. The average total costs per family was Tk The average gross return was Tk and net return was Tk and benefit-cost ratio was Family poultry production brought positive changes in different types of livelihood assets, daily protein intake, savings, women empowerment, change in health and sanitation, etc. Seventy two percent poultry keeper opined their socio-economic conditions got improvement through household poultry farming. The study identified some economical, social and natural, marketing, technical problems, and their provable solutions. Keywords: Household poultry, rearing, profitability, impact, livelihood. Citation: Rahaman S. (2012), A Socioeconomic Study on Household Poultry Rearing in Some Selected Areas of Mymensingh District in Bangladesh. IRJALS 1(1): p Received: Accepted: Zinnat et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Common Attribution 3.0 License. 27

2 1. Introduction Bangladesh is one of the least developed countries having large population and small land area. More than 31 percent of its people still live below poverty line. Bangladesh is overwhelmingly agricultural with more than half of her total population. Agriculture contributes 22 percent to the GDP (BBS, 2009). Poultry is an indispensable part of agriculture which can act an important role for poverty alleviation and socio-economic development. The poultry sub-sector is crucial in the context of agricultural growth and improvement of diet for the people in Bangladesh. Poultry can be an important tool to fight poverty not only for this group of people but also for the distressed women as poultry requires minimum land, short capital and skill. In Bangladesh, the poultry sector is also an integral part of the farming system. Poultry meat is the fastest growing component of global meat production, consumption, and trade, with developing and transition economies playing a leading role in its expansion. In addition to providing opportunities to increase poultry exports, rising poultry production spurs growth in global import demand for feeds and other inputs and in investment opportunities in this sector. Meat is an excellent source of protein. Household poultry ensures the availability of poultry meat to the rural poor who suffer from malnutrition. Poultry meat is cheaper than beef, mutton, etc. It is generally accepted by all religion and casts. The poultry meat is also digestible with less fat comparatively with other animals. Household poultry production provides balance protein and income opportunities for the family. Small scale household poultry plays a significant role in improving the livelihood of resource poor farmers. The majority portion of farmers in their homestead raise percent chicken and percent duck respectively of the total chicken and duck production in the country (Karim, 2000). Bangladesh is turning to be sick, stunted and degenerated bunch of people due to protein deficiency. About 70 percent people suffer from malnutrition (Rahman, 2003). It is also well accepted that small scale family poultry provides balance diet and helps in poverty alleviation in rural areas. Household poultry is generally kept by the village women. It can bring a remarkable change for the family. It improves livelihood pattern. Children of these families have a scope for balance nutrition. Earning from household poultry has a potential impact on total income. It helps to make better choice. Household poultry improves livelihood of poultry keeper and their family members. 28

3 2. Related Research The researchers reviewed Karim et al. 2001, Khatun et al. 2005, Saleque et al. 2002, Tohura, 2004, Mandal et al. 2005, Alam, 2004, Shafiq et al. 2008, Karim et al and Bhuiyan, 2003 but none of them addressed household poultry issue. The present study is an attempt to identify the socio-economic condition of the farm family and to identify major problems that are faced by the household poultry growers. Although this study will be helpful to estimate the change in financial assets, physical assets, social assets, food intake, etc. The researcher believes that this study will be supportive for making decision in developing of household poultry and other related works. The present study was designed to analyze the impact of household poultry on livelihood improvement and the costs and returns of this farming in the areas of Trishal upazila and Sadar upazila under Mymensingh district. The specific objectives of the study are as follows: i. To identify socio-economic development of household poultry farmers. ii. To estimate costs, return and profits of poultry production. iii. To examine impact of family poultry farming on livelihood improvement. iv. To identify the problem of household poultry farming and suggestions for its improvement. 3. Research method used In order to achieve these objectives, stratified sampling technique was followed. Trishal upazila and Sadar upazila of Mymensingh district were selected because a large number family rear poultry in their households. A specially designed interview schedule was prepared containing all the relevant questions and the survey was conducted by the second author herself. Data were collected during the month of August- November, To estimate the results statistical analysis was done by using the following regression equation. Y= X Where, Y= Dependent variable (Return) X=Independent Variable (Cost) 0 = Intercept and 1 = Slope coefficient To examine the socio-economic development, the impact analysis of livelihood assets was followed. 29

4 4. Results and discussion The socioeconomic characteristics of the household poultry farmers were discussed here. It was observed that 87 percent of the total poultry farmers aged between years. Average age of the broiler farmer was 32 years. Most of the respondents are below secondary education level. In case of occupation, all farmers practice household poultry farming as a subsidiary occupation. Table 1 Age group and education levels of the household poultry farmers Age groups Percent Educational level Percent Less than 25 years 10 Primary years 57 Secondary years 30 SSC 22 Above 45 years 3 HSC 3 All ages 100 Total 100 Source: Field Survey, 2011 In this study, at first cost and return was estimated for 60 farms and then average values were calculated. Fixed cost included housing cost and Variable cost included all the variable factors like feed cost, cost of tools and equipments, bird purchasing cost, veterinary expenses, human labour cost, etc. The total costs being obtained by adding up all costs and average total costs per family was tk The average gross return was tk and net return was tk 1277 and benefit cost ratio was 1.13 (on total cost). Table 2 Costs and returns of household poultry rearing. Particular Unit Unit Price Total Amount 1. Cost items i) Variable cost a) Bird purchasing cost Per adult bird b) Feed cost Kg c) Labor cost Man day d) Veterinary expenses Tk ii) Fixed cost a) Housing cost Tk iii) Other costs Tk A. Total cost Returns a) Chicken and duck sell Kg b) Egg Dozen c) Gift B. Total return

5 Value in tk/farm family 3. Net return (B-A) 1277 Source: Field Survey, Gross return Total costs Net return Figure 6.1: Average gross return, total costs and net return of per farm family. Figure 6.1: Gross return, total costs and net return of per family poultry farm. Measures of Association between Cost and Return Economic point of view, most of the time return is influenced by cost. Correlation and simple regression analysis is used to identify that relation ship. Measures of Association between Cost and Return represents whether household poultry farming is profitable or not and how much change being occurred. The model of simple linear regression for this study is- Y i 0 1X i i where, Yi means return of the i th household (i.e. dependent variable), X i means cost of the i th household (i.e. independent variable), 0 and 1 are regression coefficients, i means random error which is normally distributed with constant variance. 31

6 The results of the analysis (by using MINITAB 13 software) are given below: The regression equation is Yˆ i = X i Predictor Coef SE Coef T P Constant Cost S = 1221 R-Sq = 77.3% R-Sq(adj) = 76.9% Here R % means that 77.3% variation of the return can be explained by the regression model. 0 = , the composite impact of all other variables those are not included in the model. 1 = means if cost increase by 1 unit on an average the income will be increased by.994 units. At 5% level of significance, the influence between cost and return is statistically significant (since, P value ( 0.000). 05 ). It is evident from the result that if the household poultry farmer does not use any additional cost items for poultry production, naturally they may get a minimum value. Impact Analysis for Household Poultry Keeper and Non keeper Finally a comparative study was done in between household poultry keeper and non keeper. The findings of this comparative study helps to identify that household poultry farming how can bring a significant change in any family. The following table shows that the household poultry keeper have an opportunity to education, income generation, savings, daily protein intake, recreation facility, Purchasing luxurious goods etc. They also have a positive attitude to the investment activities. On the other way, non keeper families have low income level, education level. They suffer from malnutrition and various types of diseases. Most of them have not a scope for savings and investment. 32

7 Table 3 Impact analysis for household poultry keeper and non keeper SL No. Particular/facilities Household poultry keeper Household poultry non keeper 1 Daily protein intake increased decreased 2 Education level high low 3 Women empowerment increased decreased 4 Nutritional value increased decreased 5 Disease attack decreased increased 6 Family income increased decreased 7 Employment increased decreased 8 Savings increased decreased 9 Social security increased decreased 10 Self dependency increased decreased 11 Recreation facilities increased decreased 12 Social status increased decreased 13 Investment attitude positive Negative Source: Halcayan, 2011 The study identified some problems and constraints associated with household poultry production. These were categorized into economic, social and natural, marketing, and technical problems. Predatory animals, outbreak of diseases, Problem of theft, Price fluctuation of poultry, Lack of credit institution, Housing problem were the main problems for household poultry farmers. 5. Conclusion and recommendations Household poultry can create a great opportunity for the rural women and youth in income generation. Socioeconomic development can be achieved with the help of household poultry farming. There is a wide scope for development of household poultry farming in the countrywide household poultry production because rural poor women have enough time for rearing family poultry. It would be really very helpful for income generation, women empowerment, and nutritional improvement for the farm family. Since most of the people irrespective of caste and religion prefer chickens and eggs, its demand is high and prices are gone up. Most of the household poultry farmers were small farmers while some of them were landless. Some improvements in the status of clothing, toilet condition, medical facilities, drinking water and housing have been taken place because of poultry farming. In the present study, in terms of overall socioeconomic improvement 72 percent household poultry farmers opined that household poultry farming helped to improve their socioeconomic condition. As a result, tendency to initiate household poultry farming is widely observed in rural areas. 33

8 In the study area, a lot of problems and difficulties were found in family level poultry production. To overcome the difficulties of household poultry raising and to make poultry production more profitable in the country, the following recommendations are put forward for the improvement of existing production of household poultry. i. National Poultry Development Policy is required to formulate for the development of present growth of household poultry farming. ii. Feed standardization and quality control act of poultry feed need to be formulated immediately. iii. Regular vaccination is a prerequisite for any improvement in family poultry production. Necessary steps should be taken to reduce the losses from diseases. iv. The marketing system is generally informal and poorly developed in rural areas. But local consumers generally prefer meat and eggs from indigenous stocks. The existence of a local market offering good sales opportunities and adequate transport facilities are an obvious prerequisite for household poultry development. 34

9 References Alam, M. S., Rahman, M. Saidur. and Khatun, M. A Backward and Forward Linkages of Poultry Farming in Some Selected Areas of Dhaka District, International Journal of Sustainable Agricultural Technology: An online Journal of G-Science Implementation and Publication, Website: April, Vol. 4, No. 2, PP: Alam, S.M. (2004), A study on backward and forward linkage of poultry farming in some selected areas of Savar Upazila under Dhaka district. M.S. Ag. Econ. thesis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh. BBS (2009), Statistical Year Book of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Statistical Division, Ministry of Planning, Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Bhuiyan, A. H. (2003), A Comparative Economic Analysis of Poultry Under Supervision of AFTAB Bahumukhi Farm and own Management in Some Selected Areas of Kishoreganj district. M.S. Ag. Econ. thesis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh. Biswas, M. A. A., M. M. Akther, M.A. hamid and S.A. Aziz (2001) An economic analysis on poultry rearing by rural women. Bangladesh Journal of Livestock Research. vol. 8(1&2). Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute. Saver, Dhaka pp Halcyan, H. P. (2011), A Socioeconomic Study on Household Poultry Rearing in Some Selected Areas of Mymensingh District. M.S. Ag. Econ. thesis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh. Khatun, M.S., M.S. Islam, J. Alam and M.M. Rahman (2005), Growth performance of broiler under different management system. Bangladesh Journal of Livestock Research. vol. 3(2). Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute. Saver, Dhaka Mandal, M. A. S., S. K Bairagi and Rahman, M. Saidur Vertical Integration in Bangladesh Agriculture: The Case of Contract Farming for High Value Food Products. Bangladesh Journal of Political Economy. Vol. 22, Nos. (1&2), PP: Rahman, M.M. (2003). Growth of Poultry Industry in Bangladesh: Poverty Alleviation and E mployment Opportunity. A paper presented on 3`d International Poultry Show and Seminar. BCFCC, Dhaka. Organized by World Poultry Science Association - Bangladesh. Saleque, M.A. and M.M. Islam (2002), Small-scale broiler rearing as an income generating for hard-core women in rural Bangladesh. Bangladesh Journal of Livestock Research. vol. 9(1&2). Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute. Saver, Dhaka Tohura, S. (2004), "Economics of small-scale commercial broiler farming in Sadar upazila of Rangpur District". M.S. Ag. Econ thesis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh. 35