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www.setscholars.org May – 2012 IRJALS

Volume – 1, Issue – 2 Research Paper
Knowledge is Power ISSN: 1839-8499
Article #04

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 e-mail: 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 25-45 years and the highest number had secondary education. The average
total costs per family was Tk. 9810. The average gross return was Tk. 11087 and net return was Tk. 1277 and
benefit-cost ratio was 1.13. 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. 27 – 35.

Received: 13-05-2012 Accepted: 16-05-2012

Copyright: @ 2012 Zinnat et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Common Attribution 3.0 License.

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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 77.29 percent chicken and 84.41 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.

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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. 2000 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, 2011.

To estimate the results statistical analysis was done by using the following regression equation.

Y=  0 + 1X
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.

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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 25-45 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 32

25-35 years 57 Secondary 43
35-45 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. 9810 . The average
gross return was tk 11087 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 225 1345
b) Feed cost Kg 16 2864
c) Labor cost Man day 250 3802
d) Veterinary expenses Tk. - 550
ii) Fixed cost
a) Housing cost Tk. - 830
iii) Other costs Tk. - 419
A. Total cost 9810
2. Returns
a) Chicken and duck sell Kg 264.5 8993
b) Egg Dozen 72 1584
c) Gift - - 510
B. Total return 11087

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3. Net return (B-A) 1277
Source: Field Survey, 2011

12000
11000
10000
9000
Value in tk/farm family

8000
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
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-

Yi  0  1 X 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.

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The results of the analysis (by using MINITAB 13 software) are given below:

The regression equation is

Yˆi = 1334 + 0.994 X i

Predictor Coef SE Coef T P

Constant 1334.5 711.0 1.88 0.066
Cost 0.99415 0.07068 14.07 0.000

S = 1221 R-Sq = 77.3% R-Sq(adj) = 76.9%

Here R  77.3% means that 77.3% variation of the return can be explained by the regression
2

model.  0 = 1334.5, the composite impact of all other variables those are not included in the model.
 1 = 0.994 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.

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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 socio-
economic 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.

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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.

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