In Baansdongri, a tribal village in the Tamia development block of Chhindwara district, Madhya Pradesh, Rampyari lives with her husband, Santosh Markam and their son.
Like most families in the village, their livelihood depends on maize cultivation and seasonal agricultural labour. As a result of changing weather patterns, limited access to markets, etc., income from farming is uncertain, and seasonal migration to urban areas has become common.
Rampyari’s husband and son, and on occasions Rampyari herself, have had to leave the village to earn a livelihood. For several years, Rampyari reared a small number of local (desi) poultry birds at home, usually between eight and ten. The birds were primarily intended for household consumption, with occasional sales to cover small expenses.
While easy and familiar, the income was unreliable. During colder months, disease outbreaks were frequent, especially as birds from different households mixed freely. With no access to vaccination or veterinary support, entire flocks were often lost. Each outbreak meant that Rampyari had to start again with new birds purchased from nearby villages.
Impact of Enabling Access
Rampyari’s situation saw a change after she joined a self-help group supported by Pararth Samiti under its Nutrition and Livelihoods Programme, initiated in 2016. The programme began with 228 women and has since expanded to reach 300 women, covering 30 villages in the block. Poultry was identified as an activity that could serve two purposes: improving household nutrition through access to protein, and creating a supplementary livelihood for the local tribal women.
There, Rampyari received training on basic poultry rearing and management practices such as building and maintenance of night shelter, nutrition of the chicks, disease prevention, etc. As part of the programme as well, some women received additional training as Pashu Sakhis, creating a local system for animal health support and reducing dependence on distant or unavailable services.
From Risk to Reliability
Before joining the programme, Rampyari earned ~₹2,500 – 3,500 per annum from poultry. In 2022, she constructed a night shelter and began rearing 30 chicks with proper care and vaccination. She was able to sell 22 birds for ₹10,500, while the remaining birds contributed directly to household nutrition.
Building on this experience, she has expanded and begun rearing birds more consistently. With demand for healthy chicks increasing in nearby villages, she invested in a solar-based incubator and brooder. Earlier, delays in accessing chicks often disrupted rearing cycles and increased costs.
The solar unit now ensures timely availability, improves survival rates, and reduces dependence on external suppliers, strengthening poultry-based livelihoods at both the household and community level. Today, she rears around 150 chickens annually and earns approximately ~₹25,000 – 30,000 each year from poultry, excluding the value of birds consumed by her family.
What was once a vulnerable, low-return activity has become a stable source of supplementary income.
What Stability Means
The impact of these changes goes beyond income. Improved food security, reduced losses, and more predictable earnings have strengthened the Rampyari’s household resilience. In the past two years, her family has not needed to leave the village in search of income.
What made the difference was not the activity itself, but the support around it. Poultry rearing was never new to Rampyari. What changed was access to training, timely inputs, and local systems that reduced risk. With this enabling ecosystem, poultry went from a supplementary nutritional filler to a small enterprise that supports her entire family.
Rampyari is recognised within her village as someone others can learn from, and her experience is encouraging more women to see livelihood activities not just as survival strategies, but as viable businesses.
She is now the Community Resource Person (CRP) for the village, representing her community at the block level. She also receives ongoing training with Pararth Samiti, and in turn trains the other 36 village-level committee members.
Her journey reflects a simple truth: when support is timely and rooted in local realities, women can build, sustain, and scale their own livelihoods and support their families.