Mrs Rajeshwari, a 38-year-old M.Sc. Botany graduate from Wandoor village of South Andaman, has emerged as a successful rural poultry entrepreneur through scientific interventions and technical support provided by ICAR-Central Island Agricultural Research Institute. Prior to the intervention, she was illiterate in poultry farming.
In 2023, she approached ICAR-CIARI seeking scientific guidance to generate her employment through poultry farming. She underwent skill development programme on scientific rural poultry farming at ICAR-CIARI. She started practising traditional backyard poultry farming with only five indigenous birds, mainly for household consumption. Further, the institute provided hands-on training and continuous technical support on scientific poultry housing. Gradually, she shifted to small scaling up of rural poultry with occasional sale, generating very limited income. The institute continuously monitored her progress and motivated her to proceed for medium scale of rural poultry farming. She was trained on brooder-grower-breeder management, hatchery operations, poultry health care, vaccination, feed management, and market-oriented enterprise planning. She was also guided on scientific scheduling of poultry activities to ensure continuous production and year-round cash flow.
With the technical guidance of ICAR-CIARI, Mrs Rajeshwari has now established a semi-intensive rural poultry unit integrated with a mini-incubator of 2,500 setter capacity. Initially, she scientifically reared 2,400 birds and gradually developed a self-sustaining breeder flock system. From the fifth month onwards, around 550 birds were maintained as parental stock for continuous chick production and 1200 birds for meat purpose as sale. The breeder flock presently produces nearly 3,600 eggs monthly, of which about 2,500 eggs are utilised for hatching. By adopting improved incubation and health management practices, she successfully is achieving nearly 2,000 chicks every month with 80 per cent hatchability.
The enterprise now ensures regular production of meat birds, chicks, and table eggs, creating continuous monthly income and employment opportunities. Economic analysis of the scientifically managed rural poultry enterprise revealed that Mrs Rajeshwari presently markets approximately 600 kg of live poultry meat, 600 chicks, and 1,100 table eggs every month. The integrated poultry production system generates an estimated monthly net profit of around Rs. 1.91 lakh with a benefit-cost ratio of 2.02, demonstrating the economic viability and sustainability of scientific rural poultry farming under island conditions. Today, Mrs Rajeshwari stands as an inspiring example of women-led rural entrepreneurship in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Her success has encouraged several rural youth and farm women in the region to adopt scientific rural poultry farming as a sustainable business avenue. The success of Mrs Rajeshwari has witnessed that scientific rural poultry farming is a commercially viable sector for self-employment generation for island educated youths.
Source : Dr.T.Sujatha, Dr.Sharath Yeligar, ICAR-Central Island Agricultural Research Institute, Sri Vijaya Puram
