Poultry farming is raising different types of domestic birds commercially for the purpose of meat, eggs and feather production. The most common and widely raised poultry birds are chickens. Around 5k million chickens are being raised every year as a source of food for both meat and eggs. The chickens raised for eggs are called layer chickens, and the chickens which are raised for their meat production are called broiler chickens.
The poultry industry is the fastest-growing sector in Indian agriculture. The current annual growth rate of the poultry and agriculture sectors are around 8 and 1.5% respectively. India ranks fifth and accounting 5% of the world total poultry population. India ranks third in world egg production accounting for around 78.48 billion numbers eggs and availability is 74 eggs/person/year. Poultry meat contributing 45% of total meat production in India. India ranks fifth in the world in poultry meat production accounting for around 3.05 MT and availability is 3.1 kg/person/year. (DAHDF annual report 2015-16, ICRA 2016).
Why Poultry Farming is favourable for farmers??
Poultry farming has plenty of benefits. People generally establish poultry farms for the purpose of producing eggs, meat and generating high revenue from selling these products in the market Around, billions of chickens are raised throughout the world as a good source of food from their eggs and meat.
1. Minimum Capital Requirement: The main benefit of poultry farming is that it doesn’t require high capital for starting as most of the poultry birds are not expensive to start raising.
2. Less Space requirement: Poultry farming doesn’t need a big space unless started commercially. Most birds can be easily raised birds on their own backyard with one or numerous coops or cages.
3. High Returns Within Short Time Period: Commercial poultry farming business ensures a high return of investment within a very short time period. Few poultry birds such as broiler chickens take a shorter duration of time to mature and generating profit. Poultry products are not much expensive which can be afforded by most people.
4. Low Maintenance required: High maintenance is not required in poultry farm structures. By following proper hygiene and care helps minimize diseases and illness anyways, diseases are much lesser in some poultry birds such as quails, turkeys etc.
5. License is not Compulsory: In most cases, one doesn’t need any license. As almost all types of poultry birds are domestic. Also getting a license from the relevant authority is also easy for poultry.
6. Huge Global Demand: Poultry gives us fresh and nutritious food and has a huge global demand. Therefore, global consumers of poultry products prefer them because of their nutrients and freshness.
7. Easy Marketing: Marketing poultry products is very easy due to is an established market for poultry products in almost all places of the world. So any farmer can easily sell the products in the nearest local market.
8. Income & Employment Opportunities: Poultry farming creates income and employment opportunities. Unemployed educated youth can easily make a great income by raising poultry commercially.
9. Bank Loans: Almost all banks approve loans for these types of business ventures. To start the business commercially, one can apply for loans to their local banks. Almost all the top banks in India provide easy loans for poultry farming.
However, there are some disadvantages of Intensive poultry farming as it can generate health risks, abuse the animals and be harmful to the environment whereas the free-range poultry farming method requires a large place for raising the birds and the production is about the same as the intensive method. The producers must have to use nationally approved medications like antibiotics regularly to keep the poultry birds free from diseases.
How can a poultry farmer increase his income?
To increase the income in real terms would imply restructuring poultry processes & policy interventions. Fundamentally there are three ways in which the income of farmers may be enhanced, viz., increasing the gross income, reducing the costs, and stabilizing the income. Increasing incomes by improving productivity, integrated and diversified farming system, better market price realization and special policy measures are needed. The strategies require four critical pillars—technology, institutions, infrastructure and incentive structure. Poultry based policy should be based on the principles of social acceptability, economic feasibility, technical viability and resource conservation ability.
Commercial poultry farming is a very profitable business being one of the traditional business ventures.
Economical Poultry Feeding
Feed is the major constituent in poultry production accounts for 65-75% of total recurring expenditure where our country is about 33 % deficient in concentrate mixture required as ruminant and non-ruminant feed which causes a rise in feed cost. Feed costs are primarily driven by the cost of protein sources. Substitution of expensive protein sources like soybean meal (SBM) with lower-cost ingredients would potentially reduce the cost of the feed.
Alternate and unconventional feed resources help to minimize the feed cost like Azolla, earthworm meal, termite meal, feather meal, snail meal, insects etc.
- Locally available feed resources should be used as they are cheaper and easily available in the local market along with require no transportation cost.
- Self feed formulation reduces feed cost along with quality assurance of supply of all nutrients to the birds. Use of “Make Feed” (CARI) software-for easy and least cost feed formulation can be done for various poultry species.
- Bulk purchasing of seasonally available raw feed ingredients will further reduce the feed cost along with save the margin money/benefit sharing to the middle man.
- Value addition of feed in form of flax seed, trace minerals Se, Xanthophylls pigment incorporation etc. helpful for production of designer meat and egg.
- Scavenging system can be adopted for Deshi fowl and improved germplasm of CARI Nirbhik, Shyama, Upcari and Hitcari etc. They can be utilized for scavenging system under Backyard poultry rearing.
- Deshi fowl and coloured broilers reared under scavenging system also fetches premium price in market.
- Diversification of poultry farming activity like duck cum rice farming, duck cum fish farming etc.It will reduce poultry rearing and feeding cost. Diversification can be a major game changer. It can be of three types, viz. Product (high value enterprises), process (precision farming), and time diversification (delinking from seasonality).
- Establishing Feed Bank, which can be used in case of natural disaster as well as during price hike of poultry feed ingredients.
CONCLUSION
Thus, it can be concluded that genetic improvement of poor yielding germplasm through crossbreeding, upgrading and selective breeding to maximize their production along with local adaptability, economic feeding practices, proper health care and management practices will lead to optimization of production. MSP for poultry products, market development, product processing, packaging, value addition, cold storage facilities, easy availability of high yielding germplasm, poultry insurance, adopting diversified and integrated farming, contract poultry farming, increasing backyard poultry farming, promoting organic farming to specific areas along with increased funding, subsidy and easy availability of bank loan for poultry farming are the key ways to double the farmer’s income. . Farmer needs to transform into an entrepreneur to double the income adopting innovative approach and technology.