KATHMANDU, NEPAL – Ignoring the scorching heat of the midafternoon sun, Dhanamaya Shrestha, a poultry farmer, is busy with her 1,500 chickens.
It’s time for her to feed them.
In Bista, a village in Kirtipur, a city located a few miles southwest of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, Shrestha has a small, three-story house. Just in front of her house stands the reason her family was able to build it: a chicken coop made from bamboo, straw and mud.
“It’s because of this poultry farming that I’ve had many positive changes in my life,” Shrestha says as she feeds her chickens. “It [has] raised the lifestyle of my family.”
She says that thanks to poultry farming, she can support her husband, two daughters and son. Her earnings have enabled the family to build its own house, afford schooling and start saving.
“Before, it used to be difficult even to feed my family,” she says. “Now I can save to send my children to school.”
She says her family members help her with the business, except her youngest daughter, who is in grade 11 in school.
“It’s unfortunate that because of poverty we couldn’t send our elder son and daughter to school,” Shrestha says. “They only studied until third grade and had to discontinue despite their willingness to study.
But she says her poultry farming business has changed this.
“Now this poultry farming has strengthened us financially,” she says. “So up to whatever level my youngest daughter wants to study, I’ll support her.”
Originally from Gokul, a village in Kavre, a district east of Kathmandu, the Shrestha family moved to Kirtipur because of a lack of employment opportunities. They worked on someone else’s farm, but it wasn’t enough to feed the family of five. They rented a house because they couldn’t afford their own.
“When we moved to Kathmandu, we neither had an address to stay or a job,” Shrestha says. “For six months, we stayed in the neighborhood of Naya Bazaar and worked petty jobs for daily survival.”
While working one of these menial jobs, Shrestha ended up in Kirtipur’s Salyansthan village, where she noticed structures made of bamboo and straw. An inquisitive Shrestha asked about them, and she found out about poultry farming.
This made her think that she could also start something like this. Then she wouldn’t have to work in someone else’s field, and it might also free her from the family’s financial woes.
That evening, Shrestha says she approached her husband and discussed the idea with him. To her delight, her husband agreed.
Shrestha says the start-up required a lot of effort, especially to acquire the land to build a coop since they didn’t have their own piece of land.
While they were searching, they met Shiva Bista, a local landowner, in Bista, where they have their coop now. The Shrestha couple made a deal with Bista to pay him 10,000 rupees, $135 USD, annually to rent the coop for five years. The coop accommodates 1,500 chickens.
To set up their new business, they required 150,000 rupees, $2,030 USD. All they had was 100,000 rupees, $1,360 USD, from the house they sold in Kavre. But with an additional 50,000 rupees, $680 USD, that they borrowed from their former employer, they began the operation in 2009.
Shretha says that the chickens can be sold after 60 days from the day they’re bought. She says the more chickens they have, the more profit they make. But on average, they earn between 30,000 and 40,000 rupees, $400 and $540 USD, per month.
Shrestha says she has been satisfied with how poultry farming has improved her family’s standard of living.
The Nepali government has been active in promoting the poultry farming industry here, offering trainings and subsidized materials. Poultry farmers say the business has enabled them to support their families, build homes, send their children to school and start saving. Challenges do exist, such as poultry diseases and a lack of training in rural areas. But industry officials say that overall, the business benefits consumers, the economy and the farmers.
There are 5,000 commercial poultry farms in Nepal, according to 2010 data from Practical Action, an international nongovernmental organization. Agriculture contributes 66 percent of the population’s employment opportunities and 36 percent of the country’s total gross domestic product, GDP, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives. It contributes 17.6 billion rupees, nearly $240 million USD, to the GDP, says Deepak Mani Pokhrel, senior horticulture development officer for the ministry.
More than half of Nepalis live below the international poverty line of $1.25 per day, according to UNICEF. The labor underutilization rate, considered a more accurate measure than unemployment, is nearly 40 percent for males and more than 20 percent for females, according to the 2009 Nepal Labor Force Survey Report.
Gyan Bahadur Thapa, livestock officer in the Department of Livestock Services under the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, says that the Nepali government began developing poultry farming in 1960 with the establishment of a central hatchery.
“In Nepal, traditionally people were into local hens,” Thapa says. “But in 1960, a central hatchery was established in Parwanipur, in Sarlahi district, through an American cooperation, which imported 1,700 New-Hampshire-breed chicken.”
The introduction of technology that separated the chickens by sex for breeding purposes institutionalized poultry farming in Nepal, he says.
To promote and develop poultry farming these days, the Nepali government provides a free one- to two-week training for aspiring poultry farmers. The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives conducts the trainings in Lalitpur, the district south of Kathmandu, under the Department of Livestock Services.
There are also two government-owned chicken production farms in the country: Poultry Farm in Nepalgunj, a municipality in Nepal’s Mid-Western region, and Livestock Development Farm in Pokhara, a city in Nepal’s Western region.
These farms breed chickens and sell them to poultry farmers for 50 to 60 rupees, 70 to 80 cents USD, apiece. After the poultry farmers raise the chickens for 55 to 60 days, the farms buy them back for resale at 170 rupees, $2.30 USD, per kilogram. The farms also sell fodder at 1,700 rupees, $23 USD, per bag.
Thapa says that this makes the process easier for the farmers in the market. They can rely on the steady rate offered by government farms and avoid fluctuation in the market.
Shrestha says the government has been proactive in promoting and sustaining poultry farming.
“The trainings and booklet published by the department has proved beneficial,” Shrestha says.
She and other farmers say that they received training from the Department of Livestock Services and also follow the directives from the poultry farms where they get their chicken. Farmers say they are happy to be able to earn a living and support their families through poultry farming.
Urmila Parajuli, from Lalitpur, says she has been involved in this profession for eight years. Her husband also helps her to look after their 2,000 chickens. About 1,000 of them also lay eggs, which earn them extra profit.
She says that hard work pays off in this profession, and that she’s able to use it to support her family of three. Parajuli says that during good times, her profit has reached up to 200,000 to 300,000 rupees, $2,700 to $4,070 USD, over three to four years.
She says that Nepalis don’t have to go abroad to make money, as has become popular among women here. With proper knowledge, training and consultation, poultry farmers can earn a decent living and reduce unemployment.
Pashupati Dahal also has a successful poultry business. He owns Dahal Poultry Farm in Dhapasi, a village in the Kathmandu district.
With 20 employees on his farm, he says he still makes a profit of 50,000 rupees, $680 USD, and at good times more than 100,000 rupees, $1,360 USD, in two months.
Sitaram KC, from Salyansthan, says poultry farming can make dreams come true.
“It’s just a dream when you think of earning 50,000 rupees [$680 USD] in profit by working for someone else or in an office,” he says, referring to a two-month period. “But with poultry farming, it seems like this dream can come true.”
He says all a farmer needs to achieve this dream are patience and the required training. He says his determination and hard work have enabled him to increase his chickens from 500 to 3,000 chickens in six years.
Still, the poultry farmers say there are challenges.
Shrestha says that, unlike Parajuli, she doesn’t raise any chickens that lay eggs because they need special attention.
“If you don’t take care of them properly, the chickens won’t lay eggs on daily basis, and you’ll have to bear the loss,” Shrestha says. “If I could have put extra effort, I would have had more profit. But for now, from what I have, I am making enough profit.”
Shrestha says that diseases – or even the rumours of diseases – also cost the farmers. Common poultry diseases in Nepal include Newcastle disease, Marek’s disease and fowl pox.
She says that early vaccination can help prevent them, but at times, they do have to incur losses. For Shrestha, her minimum loss hovers between 15,000 to 20,000 rupees, $200 to $270 USD, while maximum losses have totaled up to 40,000 rupees, $540 USD.
Dahal says that in addition to risks of viral diseases mentioned by Shrestha, there are also bacterial diseases, such as pullorum and fowl cholera; diseases from mold, such as aspergillosis and mycotoxicosis; and diseases from parasites, such as coccidiosis.
But he says they can be prevented with vaccinations. Still, when news spreads like wildfire about bird flu, even if it isn’t in Nepal, Dahal says the scare leads to losses for farmers. But he says it eventually picks back up.
“Again, the business in eggs and meat picks up when the media has the news that bird flu isn’t spread [in Nepal],” Dahal says.
Shrestha says the government trainings are a great way to detect the diseases and know the proper doses of vitamins to give to the chickens to keep them healthy and help them grow. She says trainings should be expanded to rural areas to enable more Nepalis to benefit from poultry farming.
“If the government and nongovernment[al] organizations can train people on poultry farming in rural areas, it would be a great benefit for them,” Shrestha says.
Consumers also benefit from the poultry farmers’ businesses, says Shiva Prasad Sharma, president of the Nepal Hatchery Industries Association, a government-registered umbrella organization that aims to protect industry interests and improve management. Sharma says Nepal is dependent on poultry products, such as eggs and meat, and that it is because poultry farming has flourished that the country hasn’t needed to import these products.
Though exporting poultry products to countries like India, China and Bangladesh is possible, he says these countries already have good markets in their countries and so Nepal hasn’t been able to tap into the export market. Nevertheless, he says poultry farming benefits the country’s economy.
“It has a crucial contribution in the country’s total GDP,” he says.
Meanwhile, it continues to benefit the farmers, he says.
“This business doesn’t need more capital, and you don’t have to wait long for the return on investment of 150,000 rupees [$2,030 USD], of which you can get the result in 55 to 60 days,” he says. “This hasn’t let the hard work of farmers go into waste in any part of the country.”
Shrestha says she plans to continue her business and even expand it.
“We’ll work harder, invest more and even employ people if needed,” Shrestha says.
