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

Abstract

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.