Women’s participation in poultry farming to alleviate poverty from Batiaghata upazila under Khulna District

The purpose of the study was to determine the participation of rural women in poultry farming as a means to reduce poverty from two villages namely Kismatpur and Kharabad of Amirpur union under Batiaghata upazila of Khulna district, Bangladesh. Data were collected from 55 rural women involved in poultry farming practices using questionnaires. The socio-economic study revealed that majority of the women (72.7%) were young aged having medium sized families (63.6%) and 90.9 percent women poultry farmers being literate. About half of the respondents (54.5%) were belongs to marginal farmer’s category and all respondents (100%) had medium annual income. The study revealed that women participation was maximum in poultry feeding activities and least in purchasing, processing and marketing activities. About 34.5 percent of the respondents had no organizational participation. Among the respondents, 76.4 percent had low extension contact. About 58.2 percent had no training while 45.5 percent had high knowledge about poultry farming activities. Among thirteen selected characteristics of the respondents age had shown negative significant and education level had positive significant relationship with participation of women in poultry farming activities. Poultry farming contributes 23 percent to the total income which improved income, rate of wearing good clothes, improved housing condition, access to medical care and adequate and safe food which has considered as the poverty reduction indicators. So participation of women in poultry farming activities had a more or less positive impact on income which ultimately leads to alleviate poverty. * Corresponding Author: Md. Maruf Billah  maruf@ku.ac. bd International Journal of Agronomy and Agricultural Research (IJAAR) ISSN: 2223-7054 (Print) 2225-3610 (Online) http://www.innspub. net Vol. 14, No. 6, p. 32-38, 2019 Int. J. Agron. Agri. R. Islam et al. Page 33 Introduction Bangladesh is a small country having large population and majority of this (76.61%) population live in rural area conducting agricultural activities. Livestock is one of the important segments of the overall economy of Bangladesh and it contributes about 36.31% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employing about 62% of the labor force (BBS, 2011). Poultry farming is a major component of livestock. Obviously the economic development of the country depends on a great extent on the prior development of poultry sector. In the male dominant society, rural women are not able to work outside of their home and as a result they have lack of facilities in terms of education, independence, controlling their own assets and household decision making. But this situation seems to be changing day by day due to participation of women in poultry farming activities. To ensure a balance socioeconomic development of the country, empowerment of women is a precondition but there are usually few or no job opportunities for the landless, disadvantaged women. This may be achieved only when there is an increased participation of women in income generating activities. Poultry farming is the only activity in which a large number of landless women can participate easily. About 70% of the rural, landless women are directly or indirectly involved in poultry farming activities (BBS, 2014). Poultry farming is suitable for widespread implementation as it is of low cost, requires little skills, is highly productive and can be incorporated into the household work. The role of women in poultry farming plays a significant influence in the rural families and it is the most important means through which rural women are able to contribute meaningfully to the cash needs for themselves and their family members which ultimately helps in alleviating poverty which will ultimately help to enrich national economy. The study was conducted to fulfill the following objectives; I. To assess the socio-economic characteristics of rural women participating in poultry farming activities. II. To investigate the extent of participation of rural women in poultry farming activities in the study area. III. To find out the contribution of the rural women poultry farmers to alleviate poverty in the study area. Materials and methods Locale and sampling The study was conducted at two villages of Amirpur union under Batiaghata upazila in Khulna district. The rural women of the study area who were participating in poultry farming activities were treated as population of this study and selected randomly taking 25 from Kismatpur and 30 from Kharabad village. Thus the sample size was 55. Selection and measurement of variables Reviewing related studies, the researchers considered 13 characteristics of the rural women as independent variables. These were; age of respondent, level of education, family type, family size , farm size, organizational participation, farming experience (poultry), farming experience (agriculture), extension media contact, knowledge about poultry farming, training , poverty reduction and total household income. On the other hand, the participation of rural women in poultry farming activities was treated as dependent variable. Five important broad aspects of poultry farming activities were included to measure participation of rural women and a number of 19relevantissues were also included under the five broad aspects of poultry farming activities. A four-point Likert scale in which 0 = not at all, 1 = some extent, 2 = average extent, 3 = great extent was employed against each of the issues to determine the extent of participation of rural women. A score of 3, 2, 1 and 0 were assigned against each of the scale. Participation score of a respondent was determined by summing up all the scores obtained by the respondent against all the issues of the five selected aspects. The participation score of a Int. J. Agron. Agri. R. Islam et al. Page 34 respondent could range from ‘0’ to ‘57’ where ‘0’ indicates no participation and ‘57’ indicate high participation. To compare the level of participation in 5 major aspects as well as 19 issues a participation index (PI) was calculated by using the following formula: PI = Nge× 3 + Nae×2 + Nse× 1+ Nna × 0 Where, PI= Participation Index Nge= No. of the respondent participated to a great extent Nae=No. of the respondent participated to an average extent Nse= No. of the respondent participated to some extent Nna= No. of the respondent not at all participated As there were 55 respondents, so Participation Index (PI) could range 0-165. Where ‘0’ indicate no participation and ‘165’ indicated to great extent participation. Based on PI the five aspects as well as 19 issues were ranked to compare the level of participation by the respondents in selected aspects and issues. Data collection and Analysis Data were collected with the help of the interview schedule keeping the objectives in mind during 4th March to 6th April, 2018.After completion of survey, local units were converted into standard unit and then all the qualitative data were converted into quantitative form by means of suitable code and score whenever necessary. Statistical measure such as number, percentage, minimum-maximum, rank order, mean and standard deviation were used in describing the independent and dependent variables. For exploring the relationships Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient (r) was computed by Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20. Results and discussions Selected characteristics of the respondents Majority of the women poultry farmers (72.7%) were young aged, followed by 23.6 percent were middle aged and only 3.7 percent were old aged. Middle and elder farmers seem to be somewhat less motivated to adopt new poultry farm practices than young aged farmers. About 43.6 percent of the respondents had secondary level of education while 23.7 percent had primary level of education and only a few of the respondents (9.1%) were illiterate. Educated people are more innovative and conscious about farming practices. Majority of the respondents (63.7%) had medium sized family while 23.6 percent of the respondents had small sized family and only 12.7 percent had large sized family. The average family size (4.89) of the study area indicates that the respondents are not conscious about their family size and population growth because the average family size of the study area is more than that of national average (BBS, 2011). Most of the respondents (80%) had small to marginal farm size while about 20 percent belonged to land less. The average farm size of the poultry farmers of the study area (0.15ha) were lower than that of national average (0.60ha) of Bangladesh (BBS, 2014). All the respondents (100%) had medium household income. Majority of the respondents (98.2%) had low to medium farming experiences in poultry farming followed by 1.8 percent high farming experiences. On the other hand, in case of agricultural farming about 94.5 percent had low to medium farming experiences while only 5.5 percent had high experience. Majority of the respondents (63.7%) had low organizational participation while 34.5 percent had no participation and only 1.8 percent had medium participation in different organizations. In case of knowledge about poultry farming, it seemed that 54.5 percent women farmers had medium knowledge while 45.5 percent had high knowledge. In terms of training received it seemed that majority of the respondents (58.2%) had received no training while 41.8 percent had received low training in conducting poultry farming activities. Majority of the respondents (76.4%) had low extension contact while 23.6 percent had medium extension contact to conduct their farming activities. About half of the respondents (47.3%) believed that poultry farming played medium role in reducing poverty while 38.2 percent thought it played low role and only 14.5 percent thought it played high role in reducing poverty. Halcyan and Rahman (2012) observ