Broiler Value Chain Model for Empowerment of Poor Tribal Women: A Case Study in Jharkhand

This is a case study on a unique cooperative institution promoted as a livelihood model exclusively for tribal women, essentially small and marginal farmers, whose menfolk are by and large working in other far away states like Punjab, Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu employed mostly in construction sites, road works, etc. The project has been conceived by an NGO, PRADAN in Jharkhand after seeing its immense success in Madhya Pradesh. To take advantage of economies of scale in the procurement of inputs and in marketing, the women are organized into members of Self Help Groups (SHGs) and in clusters and further into members of cooperative society and rearing of broiler poultry undertaken. The tribal women are given sufficient training to rear about 300–500 day-old chicks as broiler poultry which is reared in a shed by the side of their dwelling itself and the cooperative society providing all support to the women from supplying the day-old chicks, inputs like feed, medicines, vaccination by purchasing everything in bulk and getting economies of scale. Feed components are purchased in bulk and mixed in feed mill owned by the cooperative society. Local educated youth are trained to undertake handholding support to the entrepreneur women. The cooperative society also organizes the bulk sale of the birds as and when they are ready for sale by contacting traders in nearby cities and accept the best rates and the traders come and lift the birds after making payment upfront. The cooperative society is run by a governing body consisting of the member women and the profits are distributed among the members by way of dividend after retention as reserves.