Guwahati, Aug. 20: A national-level trust has taken up a novel project to generate sustainable employment in rural Assam by absorbing women from poor families in a modern market-oriented poultry business.

The National Smallholder Poultry Development Trust, New Delhi, in association with the Centre for Microfinance & Livelihood (CML), Guwahati, will implement the project that aims to promote at least 2,000 women poultry producers from indigenous communities in the first phase under this project.

"We will start the project next month. Over a three-year period, 2,000 women will be engaged in the business. In this project, two primary producer companies will work under Assam Women Poultry Producers Company (AWPCL), while Tata Trusts and the local government will extend support," chief executive of the trust Harekrishna Deka told The Telegraph.

Apart from providing dignified sustainable employment to women farmers, each of the two producer companies will deploy 30-50 community youths at the collective and provide technical and management services to the farmers, cumulatively creating employment of 150 people, while the feed plant and hatchery will be managed by AWPCL.

"The cost of promoting one poultry producer will come to about Rs 1.5 lakh," Deka said.

The project aims to produce 8,500 metric tonnes of birds (poultry) annually in the next five years with a sales turnover of Rs 64 crore and create farmers wealth of Rs 5 crore annually. Interestingly, the poultry producers will own the entire business.

Implemented in an end-to-end manner, the project will de-risk the poultry business from downturns in business cycles, providing a gamut of required services and capabilities to promote community-owned business management.

"It seeks to link farmers in the remote areas with the market and participate in the activity, thereby converting the hitherto non-producers and subsistence farmers into economically active producers of commodities," Deka added.

The NSPDT, which carries core expertise in promoting smallholder poultry enterprise among poor rural families, has so far promoted over 9,000 women poultry producers in Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand.

"Likewise, our objective is to promote 5,000 women producers in Assam, mainly from indigenous communities," he said.

The trust has already recruited a professional team and identified a few locations in Dibrugarh and Goalpara districts in the first phase.

"In Dibrugarh, we will work with poor women from the Sonowal community, while in Goalpara, with the Rabha and Bodo communities," he said.

Poultry farming has a significant potential to contribute to farm diversification as Assam is a deficit state in regard to chicken and egg production.

Assam requires about 80 to 90 lakh birds (poultry) every month against a production of just 60 lakh. Retail prices of broiler chicken in Guwahati had shot up to Rs 140-150 per kg recently.

During summer, the production is even lower with higher mortality and greater incidence of diseases.

"The wholesale price is currently about Rs 100 per kg in Assam against Rs 60 to Rs 65 in major chicken-producing states such as Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu," Deka added.