Landless Women and Poultry: The BRAC Model in

On the background of the extreme poverty, most women of rural, landless households are subjected to in Bangladesh, an outline is provided of Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee and the evolution, which led to its present poultry development model. The model is exclusively targeted at landless women and builds on GO-NGO collaboration. It involves women in a chain of activities as vaccinators, hatchery operators, chicken rearers, feed sellers, producers of hatching eggs and as producers of eggs for the market. Credit as well as marketing are integrated into the model. A recent survey has reported considerable positive impact both in terms of income and producer household egg and meat consumption. It is concluded that poor rural women can contribute to economic development as buyers and sellers of goods and services, by contributing to improved household income, and- as important- in the process their own self esteem is heightened