Participatory problems identification under poultry farming in Banswara district of Rajasthan, India
Abstract
A study was conducted on Participatory Problems identification under Poultry farming in Banswara district of Rajasthan. In Rajasthan, Banswara is the only district in which ARYA Project was initiated. 101 youths were trained under poultry farming in ARYA project during 2016 to 2023 and these 101 youths were selected for this study. 13 major problems of poultry birds keepers were found during the study. Attack by Predators/ Wild animals on poultry birds were found to be a major problem (89.11 percent) in Banswara district of Rajasthan. Lack of finance/ money for Poultry farming was the second major problem (88.12 percent).The third major problem (86.14 percent) was the high mortality rate of poultry chicks in the district due to poor management. Lack of time for Poultry farming was the 12th problem due to seasonal youth migration in areas or cities adjacent to the district (13.86 percent). The Rank Based Quotient (RBQ) method may be useful for policy makers and researcher working in the field of poultry farming.
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Introduction
In livelihood sector, poultry farming plays an important role in the food and nutritional security of the rural poor. In India, Poultry farming is an important source of livelihood and a major occupation and symbol of economic status especially in Rajasthan (Jat and Yadav, 2012) [5] . Poultry rearing occupies a pivotal position to bring about rapid economic growth particularly benefitting weaker sections because of its low capital investment and assured quick return among all livestock based vocations. Poultry rearing, which is one of the most widely adopted livestock activities in the country, has the potential to emerge as a very good source of income and employment for the rural people. Poultry sector contributes about 36 percent of total meat production in India (Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries, 2018-19). Eggs contribute 3.77 percent as value output from total livestock rearing. India shares 3.17 percent of total poultry in the world, (Anonymous, 2018-19) [2] . The population of poultry under courtyard system is 317 million (20 th census). As per 20 th livestock census, there were 80.24 lacs poultry in Rajasthan, from which 30.33 lacs poultry were at backyard and remaining 49.91 lacs were at Commercial poultry. On the other hand, Krishi Vigyan Kendra is a noble concept developed by ICAR to impart skills and need based vocational training to farmers, farm women, and rural youth for self-employment and entrepreneurship development. Among all, rural youth are the primary productive human resource of socio-economic development. There is a continuous increase in migration of rural youth to urban areas. Skill development of rural youth through training will help in improving their confidence levels and encourage them to pursue farming as a profession, generate additional employment opportunities to mitigate under-employment and unemployment in rural areas. There is an urgent need to improve upon the quality of extension services so that farmers would be more content and satisfied. For this, ICAR has selected KVK Banswara as one of the district among 25 districts for implementing ARYA project for providing vocational training in all areas of agriculture and allied sector. The study was, therefore, designed to evaluate the prevailing problems in Poultry Farming.
Materials and Methods
Banswara is one of the districts in Rajasthan in which the ARYA project was executed in 2016-17. A total of 101youths responded to the study before conducting the skill development training during 2022-23. A pre-tested interview schedule translated in the Hindi language was administered to collect categorical and continuous data. Prevailing problems were established through participatory mode. The Rank Based Quotient (RBQ) method was employed to identity the prevalent problems in a participatory mode. Problems that poultry keepers commonly observed were listed out. They were graded on the priority assigned by individual youth, i.e. problems that were perceived as the most severe were ranked highest, and the subsequent most severe problems were ranked second and likewise.
Results and Discussion
The significant problems in animal farming were identified by the RBQ method as used by Anuradha et al., 2021 [1] . Attack by Predators/ Wild animals on poultry birds was found to be a major problem (Table . 1) in Banswara district of Rajasthan (Meena et al., 2022) [6] . Due to hilly, dispersed dwellings and more forested areas in the Banswara district, this fear is predominant. Lack of finance/ money for Poultry farming was the second major problem. Hence youths used to migrate seasonally in the neighbouring states for their livelihoods. From this migration and labour work, the income of youth was mostly in the range of Rs. 60,000 to Rs. 1,50,000 which is not sufficient for their livelihood. The third major problem was the high mortality rate of poultry chicks in the district due to poor management (Dalal et al., 2020) [4] . One of the reasons behind the death of chicks could be less knowledge during the precise brooding, hatching. Banswara is a tribal-dominated district of Rajasthan where respondents did not have access to good medical services. Owing to the lower availability of veterinary officers and skilled veterinary field assistants, youths were unable to treat their sick birds in time, leading to the death of the animals in some cases. In this region, the non-availability of common medicines and vaccines against Ranikhet, Marek's diseases etc is also a severe impediment to the poultry farmers. Owing to the lack of animal husbandry services in the region, an outbreak of diseases was the 4 th problem of youths. The fifth major problem was non-accessibility of improved breeds of poultry in the district. Many youths agreed that the financial problem was major problem in poultry farming, such as high feed material cost was6 th major problem in Banswara district. The scarcity of medical facilities for sick Poultry was the 7 th problem. Lack of Poultry market in Banswara district for selling poultry birds was 8 th problem. The 9 th problem was lack of market demand of Egg due poor awareness in peoples about egg. In some cases, the scarcity of grain/feeding material was also one of the perceived problems (10 th problem). Owing to the lack of feed and fodder, animal production has been severely impacted. Chatterjee and Rajkumar, 2015 [3] , observed that due to increasing urbanization there is increasing pressure on agricultural and fallow lands leading to high cost involvement and hence it is becoming difficult to conserve native chicken at their native tracts. The 11 th problem was the lack of knowledge about scientific practices in Poultry farming. Lack of time for Poultry farming was the 12 th problem due to seasonal youth migration in areas or cities adjacent to the district. Youth disclosed that they have open space for poultry farming so they have to take care of poultry from theft during the night (13 th problem) (Table 1 andFig 1). Poultry farming is a suitable option for revenue generation for small-scale farmers and tribal people as it requires meagre investment. Poultry can efficiently survive and sustain in Banswara climatic condition. Hence, a study was undertaken in the tribal-dominated Banswara district of Rajasthan state to identify problems perceived by youths in Poultry farming. A total of 101 tribal youths responded to the study. RBQ technique was employed to identify the problems in Poultry farming. Predators attack was identified as a major problem (89.11 percent), followed by lack of funding (88.12 percent) and High Mortality rate of poultry chicks (86.14 percent). So, this study recommended that to prevent poultry from predators, proper housing management and health management are necessary. So, youth should maintain own poultry unit after skill development training. Therefore, youth's migration from rural to urban area could be optimized in tribal areas. In addition to the ARYA project, the integration of various government schemes would benefit scaling up this profitable venture for tribal youths.
Acknowledgement
AcknowledgementsIt is a great pleasure for me to express sincere and deepest sense of gratitude and indebtedness to authors and Staff of Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Banswara for his valuable inspiring guidance and encouragement during the research work and preparation of the manuscript.
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