POULTRY FARMING, AN ALTERNATIVE LIVELIHOOD

“Climate change and drought affected everything. We had to sell our animals to feed the family and left our village in search of a better life. We landed here in Karkar, a village of Pul-e-Khomri city, Baghlan Province,” says Dur Begum, 60, a mother of four children and internally displaced person from Khost-o-Fering district, Baghlan Province.

”We sold everything to come here, but life in a city is much more challenging compared to our village. We don’t have the option of going back either,” she says.

“My husband used to work in agriculture. We had a cow and two goats, but as rain and water levels decreased in the past couple of years we struggled to earn a living. First we sold our animals, then our land. For two years, we have lived here in Karkar village. My husband and eldest son go to the city every day to do some work such as loading trucks, carrying weights and any other work they find. They are unskilled.”

Dur Begum, along with 575 others (94 percent of them female) was mobilized under the layer poultry value chain project, funded by GIZ. She was enrolled in Bakhtawar group and received poultry training.

“I already knew traditional poultry farming, but I learnt good things in training,” she says. “I learned that temperature is important for chickens, how much I should feed, when to feed, types of chicken feed, vaccination timing and importance. I also learned how to select eggs for reproduction and more.”

Like the rest of the project’s beneficiaries, Dur Begum received a poultry enterprise startup kit upon successful completion of the training. “I started building a chicken coop under my trainers’ supervision while I was still attending training,” she says. “I received metal door for the chicken coop, feeders, water pots, chicken feed, 25 chickens, multi-vitamins and other things in the form of support to establish a backyard poultry farm.”

Now, Dur Begum is collecting around 15 eggs daily. “We are now able to have good nutrient food such as eggs every day; I have learnt in the training that eggs are good food. I also sell 10 eggs every day to a shop and earn around AFN 2,800 (US $37) per month. The income from poultry helps me buy tea, sugar and rice for my family. I am very thankful for the support and training. Now that I have learnt about profits from poultry farming, I will expand my farm and will reproduce to increase egg production,” she says.

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