By raising chickens with natural remedies instead of antibiotics, women in Uttar Pradesh are safeguarding their health and boosting their incomes

Four-month-old Angel Singh is a post-term baby. Having been born after a ten-month pregnancy, many of her family members were afraid she would be weak and sickly. But Pinky always knew her child would be healthy despite being born a month after what is considered a normal nine-month pregnancy period.

Angel’s weight and other health indicators at birth proved her mother right. Much of Pinky’s confidence stemmed from the fact that she was regular with her antenatal checkups (ANC). She also focussed on a nutritious diet of leafy greens which she sourced from her small vegetable patch at the back of her house in Uttar Pradesh’s Samsa Tarhar village in Bahraich, the second most backward district in India. As her pregnancy progressed, Pinky, a small poultry farmer, diversified her diet to include antibiotic-free eggs and poultry. This was to be a smart move.

Not only because it helped her stay healthy and increase her weight and haemoglobin levels, but more importantly, thanks to her poultry training, she was able to ensure whatever she ate was free of antibiotics. By using natural feed and herbal remedies while raising her chickens, she was able to cut the risk of developing antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a condition arising from the consumption of meat and eggs of poultry fed with antibiotics to promote quick

growth and prevent diseases.

Just how critical this practice

was can be gauged from the worrying fact that, in 2019, over 297, 000 deaths in India were directly attributed to AMR. Moreover, the poultry environment has been a reservoir of multi-drug resistant bacteria according to the most recent study of four poultry farms in Uttar Pradesh by the Centre for Science and Environment which found rampant use of antibiotics for growth promotion and disease prevention. The WHO recognizes the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in feed and water in food-producing animals to contribute to the development of AMR in humans. Pinky  realised this was possible only after she joined the backyard poultry (BYP) farming initiative to empower women and enhance food security and incomes implemented by the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) under their aspirational district programme. After being trained by them in poultry farming techniques, biosecurity, and disease management using proven herbal and natural formulations to prevent the development of antibiotic resistance, Pinky, then in her second trimester of pregnancy, understood that the benefits of being a poultry entrepreneur were more than just being economically empowered. “It was an opportunity to take charge of my own health and destiny and that of my unborn child,” says Pinky. It is not just Pinky who is bringing change.

Like her, 60 women from marginalised communities in 120 villages in four blocks in Bahraich trained as poultry farmers by AKF are making a difference in their lives and communities through sustainable and ethical poultry farming practices after each was given 50 pre-vaccinated 21-day-old Sonali breed chicks free along with support for feeding and constructing chicken coups.

It was the AKF strategy to impart rigorous, yet easy-to-understand hands-on demonstration and training on using commonly found medicinal plants and herbs as alternatives to antibiotics that helped the women, mostly uneducated; understand the importance of adopting ethnoveterinary methods or traditional practices for treating animal health and illness. “I used to give antibiotics to keep my poultry healthy before I met the AKF team. Yet, many died.

After joining their programme, I gave a health tonic of turmeric water mixed with jaggery, chirata for deworming and azola, a protein rich fern, to boost their immunity. None of my chicken fell ill,” shares a Rambha Devi, a poultry farmer in village Samroha. Raghvendra Singh, AKF district coordinator, skill development, who is closely associated with the BYP programme, contends the 10 per cent mortality rate normally associated with chicks has come down to 4.5 per cent among the 3000 chicks given to AKF poultry farmers because of their use of natural feed and traditional herbal remedies.

Consequently, almost 90 per cent of their chicken was sold and the remaining was used for home consumption. The health of families, especially children, consuming these antibiotic-free poultry and eggs, has improved say frontline health workers working in these villages. Further, an AKF evaluation shows that each poultry farmer made a profit ranging between Rs 10,000-14,000. This success has prompted the women to invest in another 50 chicks even if it means taking a loan from their self-help group as it will no longer be given free.

But this isn’t stopping them, especially Pinky, who is buying 100 chicks. “The benefits I have gained from being a poultry farmer cannot be measured only in monetary terms. It has changed my life.” 

(The author is a journalist writing on development and gender; views are personal)