Doubling Farmers Income through Popularization of Climate Resilient Backyard Poultry Breeds in Ri-Bhoi District of Meghalaya: A success story

Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Ri-Bhoi, Meghalaya had introduced and popularised the climate resilient backyard poultry breeds under National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) project for enhancing farmers income since 2011-2018 at Kyrdem and adjoining Sohriewblei villages covering 102 farmers/farm women as individual and tribal Women Self-Help Groups with Vanaraja & Kuroiler birds. Building on a social capital base is an essential requirement of backyard poultry, as it is widely spread across many households. The Self-Help Groups of women and their Federations provided the right platform for initiating the programme with the focus mainly on “Area Approach” where support systems are institutionalized on an area basis rather than on an “individual family” based approach. Three progressive farmers Mr. Colbert Shadap with 200 birds, Mrs. Biona Lymphuid with 50 birds and Mrs. Valarie Maring with 40 birds started their backyard poultry enterprise on commercial scale as an alternative source of income. The average body weight gain (114 &  62 per cent) with their economic performance showed about 458 and 344 percent increase per bird in Vanaraja and Kuroiler, respectively compared with indigenous birds  (Table 1 & 2).

Output and Outcome:
Table 1: Body weight gain of backyard poultry breeds at different time intervals


Time intervals

Weight gain (kg/bird)

Indigenous

Vanaraja

Kuroiler

By 4 months

0.5

1.0

0.75

By 6 months

1.1

2 .0

1.8

By 12 months

1.75

3.0

2.6

By 18 months

2.1

4.5

3.4

Table 2: Economic performance of climate resilient backyard poultry birds

S.No

Particulars

Indigenous

Vanaraja

Kuroiler

1

Average weight (kg/bird)

2.1

4.5

3.4

2

Cost of rearing (Rs/bird)

210

300

300

3

Sale Price for meat(Rs/bird)

360

810

612

4

Sale price for eggs (Rs./egg)

336
(42 nos/year)

864
(108 nos./year)

720
(90 nos/year)

5

Returns (Rs/bird)

696

1674

1332

6

Profit (Rs/bird)

486

1374

1032

7

Profit percentage

231.4 %

458 %

344 %

8

Benefit cost ratio

3.31:1

5.58:1

4.44:1

 Farmers were economically motivated after seeing the worth of the technology and decided to form two new SHGs comprising of 20 women farmers to take backyard poultry as a venture for additional income with hatchery of fertile egg by local non-descript hen due their broodiness. However, the tribal rural farm women designated Vanaraja & Kuroiler birds as their “Credit Card” that instantly available for sale with very high demand especially for eggs & meat. This initiative taken by KVK Ri Bhoi was able to attract farmers from the adjoining villages also because it is less capital intensive with sustainable economic returns and acts as livelihood oriented enterprise for small and marginal farmers of the district.