MP women's poultry co-op to up production

The Kesla Women's Broiler Poultry Producers' Cooperative, the first women's poultry co-operative in the country, is aiming to produce 700,000 broiler chickens per month this year, from the existing 378,000 broiler chickens per month.

The co-operative, which has created its own brand "Suktawa Chicken" in Madhya Pradesh, is also looking to expand its base. Good hygienic conditions and care at the poultries have created a niche for the brand.

At present, the chicken supply is to the districts of Betul, Multai, Bhopal, Itarsi, Hoshangabad, Panchmarhi, and Pipariya.

The co-operative was formed in 2001, though a project was started in 1989-91 as a self-help group of women in the Kesla, Sohagpur, and Shahpur and Ghoradongri blocks of the Hoshangabad and Betul districts.

Women in various villages have established poultries in the backyard of each house, and each poultry has 300-400 birds.

The male members of a family take care of the chickens and arrange their feeding while the women members (members of the Gaund and Korku tribes) work as a group of service personnel.

During a national convention organised recently at Suktawa in the Kesla block, the co-operatives decided to form a body called Bharatia Grameen Mahila Murgi Utpadak Sahakarita Sangh.

The body will monitor the national umbrella organisation of all the constituent cooperatives and integrate them through chicken production, parent stock farms, premix manufacture, feed production, medicine dispensing units, branding and retailing of live and live processed chicken.

Eighty-five representatives from 10 women's poultry co-operatives from Jharkhand, MP, and Chhattishgarh participated in the convention to increase the production.

PRADAN (Professional Assistance for Development Action), a national level NGO that has facilitated the formation of the co-operatives under their rural livelihood programme, has plans to expand the existing co-operative system. The ten co-operatives together have a monthly placement capacity of 378,000 broiler chickens per month.

Anish Kumar of PRADAN said: "Effort has been made to form five more co-operatives in Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh. Together, the fifteen co-operatives will have 4,000 women members from the poor and disadvantaged communities of rural India."