Poverty transition through targeted programme: the case of Bangladesh Poultry Model

Research and education

With the help of the Network, scholars of the developing countries have been
participating in vocational training, MSc and PhD programmes, strengthening the
research activities in home countries to develop technologies and solve poultry related
problems. For example, a two-year MSc programme in Rural Poultry Production and
Health started in 2000 helped scholars from Bangladesh, Malawi, Zimbabwe and other
countries to conduct research in own country environment¹¹.

6. Conclusions and Implications:

In order to help exit from poverty, international communities have been giving
increasing emphasis to targeted schemes. The Bangladesh Poultry Model is a unique
example of such effort that was developed as an integrated supply chain gradually
through learning on the basis of experience from donor-funded GO-NGO partnership
projects for a period of more than two decades. This study is based on primary data
collected with a structured questionnaire from a sample of 400 beneficiary
smallholder poultry farmers. Poverty transition was assessed using self-assessment
dimension in a quasi experiment framework. Current poverty situation was compared
with money metric measure. Asset-base approach was used to address whether the
model facilitates a particular livelihood strategy to move out of poverty. Multinomial
logistic regression was used to explain livestock based livelihood strategies.
Household welfare measured by income per person was estimated using two-stage
regression. The important conclusions are:

The qualitative tool of self-assessment shows a marked reduction in poverty due to
the targeted poultry programme, from a head-count incidence of 42% to 26%. This
transition occurred in a long period starting from more than two decades to until
recently. Poverty incidence of households which are still active in the programme is
reduced to 16.8%. This change is not due entirely to programme because exogenous
environment is not controlled. The quantitative measurement of poverty using income
data collected from the same cohort of population produced a higher estimate of
current incidence of poverty; 42% according to upper poverty line (absolute poverty)
and 33.3% by lower poverty line (hardcore poverty).

Livelihood strategies are heterogeneous, although poultry enterprise alone is being
supported with technology, training, information, vaccination etc. Mean level of
income share from poultry was only 5.7% with a standard deviation of 11.7%, while
mean level of income share from livestock as a whole (including poultry) was about
16.2% with a standard deviation of 23.5%. Only 10% of the households considered
livestock as a major source of income (having 50% or more of income share).

Diversification through access to international migration, regular jobs in public and
private sectors and other non-farm occupations are different options for better coping
with poverty. About 24% of the households have access to regular job and 6.5% have
access to international migration. Diversification through wage labour employment

¹¹ Link of the publications is http//www.poultry.life.ku.dk/

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