Assured Income Enhancement through Model Goat and Back Yard Poultry (BYP) Farming in Simdega, Godda and Dumka Districts, Jharkhand
We are happy to announce our partnership project with ICICI Foundation, named Assured Income Enhancement Model Goat and Back Yard Poultry (BYP) Farming in Simdega, Godda and Dumka Districts, Jharkhand. This four-year project aspires to enhance capabilities of 8,000 poor rearers (Goat and BYP) in the districts of Simdega, Godda and Dumka in the state of Jharkhand, to ensure additional annual income of Rs 30,000/- per rearer (from current average income of Rs 5,000/-). Rearers would be collectivized into 150 Producer Groups (PGs) in 150 villages and PGs would be federated into three Block level Producers’ Collective (BPC) in three Blocks to support and sustain their rearing business.
Why focus on livestock?
Livestock plays an important role in rural livelihood system especially for a large number of rural poor in South Chhotanagpur and Santhal Pargana in Jharkhand. It contributes around 30% of the households’ income and about 85% of livestock are owned by the landless, small and marginal farmers. Generally, the poorer and vulnerable families use cattle for agriculture purpose, and small ruminants and fowls are used as buffer and coping mechanism during financial crisis in the family. In addition, it is also a major source of protein for the rural households.
What would the project achieve?
The project aims to address the issues like unstable income of the rural poor from an indigenous activity with proper service delivery model, technology adoption and better market linkages. Some of the major outcomes are:
- An average income of Rs. 30,000/- from integrated livestock activity in the hands of women farmers.
- By addressing infant mortality and mortality due to diseases, by proper doorstep service delivery mechanism and regularizing the practice of vet care, it is expected that the herd size will increase from three to ten over the project period.
- Grooming local youth as veterinary service providers is provisioned and around 80 such people will be groomed from the local area. On one hand they will provide vet-care services to all rearers near and far and therefore, will have a new income source due to the proposed project.
- A robust producer collective will emerge in the project areas that will sustain the initiatives and enterprises for the benefit of the marginalized households.
- A host of service enterprises will emerge to promote the concept of quality of service delivery in the sector.
- Over a period of time the project would promote local breeds that are more adapted to the local ecology.
- Use of goat and poultry manure produced through livestock rearing would help families to reduce expenditure on fertilizer in their agriculture.
Announcing the project, Mr. Narendranath Damodaran, Executive Director of PRADAN mentioned “If village-level animal health workers can provide critical services to both goats and backyard poultry, these services can become financially self-sustainable. This model of intervention, supported by the ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth, will help families to use small ruminants to meet their needs of animal protein, emergency cash needs and support them in increasing the stock of goats to attain business volumes”.
About ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth (ICICI Foundation)
ICICI FOUNDATION FOR INCLUSIVE GROWTH is the CSR arm of ICICI Group. ICICI Foundation works on promoting Inclusive Growth across the country. It focusses on developing/strengthening value chains as a part of its Rural Livelihood program. ICICI foundation promotes inclusive growth through focused and holistic initiatives in identified areas. These are designed to help in building self-sustaining ecosystems in rural India and creating a lasting value by promoting collaborative efforts amongst community members. The program works on enabling sustainable livelihood at around 1,000 plus villages across the country with more than 300,000 beneficiaries till date. ICICI Academy for Skills imparts Skill development training to the underprivileged youth for employment opportunities. Over 155,000 youth have been trained at the 28 academies across the country. ICICI Foundation also manages the Rural Self Employment Training Institutes that provide self-employment oriented training to the rural youth. The RSETIs at Udaipur and Jodhpur have trained over 108,000 people. Overall, ICICI Foundation has trained and enabled sustainable livelihood for over 566,000 people. Promoting sustainable use of natural resources, nature and wildlife conservation are integrated in the programs of ICICI Foundation.
To know more about ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth you could visit at www.icicifoundation.org
