although chickens for laying eggs is cited as one of the most typical small enterprises supported by village microfinance all over the developing world , there is nothing typical about brac chicken/poultry -not the least in terms of resiliency stories
here is a sketch from 2009 annual report- the microfranchise business of the villager who keeps chicks in the village to produce eggs s=is supported by other microfranchise businesses
breeding a chicken different that can lay up to 300 eggs a year
vet services for thi chicken
feed for chicken produced from land that could not support human foods ...
over more than 20 years multiple components businesses came together to form a total village to national market supply chain - brac calls such total value leadership models brac enterprises- and we regard brac poultry as a, if not the, benchmark case to understand value chain leadership linking one village to 100000 villages to national market leader and global exemplar
in the journal of social business we have noted inter alia:
poultry is the source of over a million micofranchised enterprises- positive cash flow earnedby village women
villagers play mainly one of 5 roles only one of which is maintaining a village's chickens for laying eggs
the 4 other main components that interlock/:
breeding superchickens
vet services for chiekens - laying 5 to 10 times more eggs than the traditional scrawny village chicken these birds do need more expert attention
chicken feed - with such a huge bird population to feed abed was concerned to mimimise use of land that could grow human food- one answer used both for chicken feed and mulberry bushes for silk rearing was utilisation of road-side land not suited for human food cultivation
coordinating distribution beyond the village now that more eggs were being procced than villagers needed
https://www.brac.net/images/Chicken_Factsheet.pdf this factsheet shows how the complete model including chicken for national consumption came together in 2004 as a lead case for what have become bracs 14 national enterprises -http://www.brac.net/brac-enterprises
we date brac chicken as mainly coming together as a leader of the whole pultry value chain in our 3rd dedade of brac 1992-2002 which is also when brac began to add nationwide capabilities to what over its first quarter of a century connected mainly village fieldworkers -it was onlt from 1996 that tech partners came to bangladesh villages in mo0bile and solar - up until 1996 village/rural meant being cut off without access to electricity grids or indeed any of the advances since 1760 of the age of machines and humans- banglsdesh and asian village empowerment has had a lot of leapfroging to do in what is brac's 2nd quarter of a century as fazle abed's last with his death in dec 2019
quoting from brac chicken factsheet:
In the late 1970s, BRAC identified poultry rearing as a source of income for the landless, particularly the destitute women. However, local chickens were generally undernourished and meat and egg yields were poor in villages. In the early 1980s BRAC partnered in a participatory action research programme aimed at increasing the productivity of small flocks of hens in village conditions and to develop a replicable smallholder model, the success of which led to the development of the national broiler chicken industry. The model involved 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 was integrated into the model. Over time, BRAC social enterprises were set up to facilitate each of these activities.
BRAC Chicken, established in 2004, was the final link within this chain. The enterprise was established to meet growing demands for dressed chicken in large metropolitan areas, by purchasing chickens from BRAC’s poultry rearing farms, other commercial farms, and rural farmers. BRAC Chicken Worker weighing chicken before it is sent for processing A BRAC Social Enterprise Driving growth in the poultry sector by increasing the supply of processed broiler meat BRAC Chicken today With the only automated plant of its kind in Bangladesh, the enterprise currently processes approximately 10,000 birds per day, which are sourced from a large number of independent rural farmers. The plant purchases chickens from BRAC’s commercial broiler farms and independent farmers, and sells the dressed meat to a variety of customers including large restaurants, hotels, supermarkets and even individual households. Given that the demand for poultry meat and eggs still exceeds the supply, our poultry operations remain an important source of support for rural farmers while driving growth in the sector and increasing the supply of high-yield variety chicks and processed broiler meat
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-please see footnote for list of brac 14 enterprises
1 seed and agro enterprises 3.1,3.2 (core value chain dev 1972=2001)
2 sericulture from 78 - an inspiring compoent of brac 3.3 crafts whose enterprise is called
3 aarong overall crafts merchandising
4 brac salt - original motivations to combat iodine defiency od all and various added deficiencies of children started iut of cox's bazaar 2001
5 brac chicken 3.4
6 brac dairy - formally stsrted in 1998 abed tells stories of timing of when to start dried milk production vital- had to wait til eu hadstpopped dumping- this enterprise also led to
7 brac artificial insemination
8 brac delivery kits qnd sanitary towels- maternal delivery kit production/distribution started 1998 - the enterprise took on different scale with amagamation of brac sanitary towels from 2004
9 brac cold storage
10 brac printing pack
11 brac fisheries although support for value chain of fish has been mapped by brac since 1976- the enterpruse formed in 2008 after successful piloting of brac fush farms
12 brac recycled handmade paper- while the value chain started in 2000 it became a full enterprise in 2009
13 brac forestry
14 to verify
