POULTRY FARMING (SILVER REVOLUTION) IN INDIA
- practice of raising poultry, such as chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, as a subcategory of animal husbandry, for the purpose of farming meat or eggs for food.
- requires small capital and provides additional income and job opportunities to a large number of rural population in the shortest possible time.
- The vast majority of poultry are farmed using factory farming techniques.
- The contrasting method of poultry farming in free range and friction between the two main methods, has led to long term issues of ethical consumerism.
- Opponents of the factory farming argue that it harms the environment and creates health risks, as well as abuses animals.
- In contrast, proponents of factory farming highlight its increased productivity, stating that the animals are looked after in state-of-the art confinement facilities and are happy; that it is needed to feed the growing global human population; and that it protects the environment.
Poultry Farming in India
- Poultry farming in India is quite old.
- At present, more than three million people are directly or indirectly employed in poultry farming.
- Further, landless labourers derive more than 50 per cent of their income from livestock, especially poultry.
- Uninterrupted supplies of feed as well as avian influenza are critical for the continued robust growth of the poultry sector.
- The first outbreak of avian influenza occurred in India in the state of Maharashtra in the Nandurbar district on 18th Feb. 2006.
- The Central Poultry Development Organisation has been playing a pivotal role in the implementation of the policies of the Government with respect to poultry as a tool for alleviating nutritional hunger and palliating the impecuniosity’s of the resource-poor farmers, especially the women.
- The mandate of the Central Poultry Development Organisation has been specifically revised, by restructuring all poultry units of this Department to focus on improved indigenous birds, which lay on an average 180-200 eggs per annum and have a vastly improved FCR ratio in terms of feed consumption and weight gain.
- The Central Poultry Development Organisations have been entrusted with the responsibility of producing excellent germplasm in the form of day-old chicks and hatching eggs of these varieties like Nierbheek, Hitkari, Vanaraja, Shyama, Cari, Chabro, etc.
- Besides, these organisations are also playing a crucial role in analysing feed samples.
- A new Centrally-sponsored scheme called Assistance to State Poultry, is being implemented during the Tenth Plan where one time assistance is provided to suitably strengthen the farms in terms of hatching, brooding, and rearing of birds with provision for feed mill and their quality monitoring and in-house disease diagnostic facilities.
- A new scheme, Dairy/Poultry Venture Capital Fund, has been launched during the 2004-05, wherein there is a provision to grant subsidy on interest payment.
- The nodal agency for the implementation of this scheme is NABARD through nationalized commercial bank.