Policy and scale factors influencing efficiency in dairy and poultry production in Bangladesh

Demand for animal products has been increasing rapidly in Bangladesh due to income and population growth and urbanisation. The expanding market has the potential to create income and employment opportunities for small-scale and poor livestock producers if they can produce and sell market-demanded products at competitive costs and prices. This opportunity may be lost if investment, fiscal and capital market policies are distorted in a way that favour large-scale producers. Therefore, the overall objective of this study was to assess the efficiency of dairy and poultry producers in Bangladesh to identify policy options for assisting small-scale operators to develop economically viable and ecologically sustainable production enterprises for participating in the rapidly-expanding urban and rural markets for milk, poultry and eggs. The theoretical framework was based on the premise that small-scale producers may be able to compete with large-scale producers in the expanding market if they fulfil two conditions: if smallholders earn higher profit/unit of output as they need to earn a reasonable income to stay in business with low volume of output, and if smallholders are more profit-efficient in the use of their limited resources, i.e. use fewer resources/unit of profit generated

Smallholder poultry model for poverty alleviation in Bangladesh: A review of evidence on impact

Smallholder poultry as a tool for poverty alleviation has been developed and widely applied in Bangladesh. In this paper, the evolution of the model has been summarized and studies conducted to assess the impact of the poultry model at various stages of its evolution have been critically reviewed. The results indicate that the project has reached the poor though not always ultra poor, the main target of the model, and that participants have benefited positively in terms of income, consumption and nutrition, empowerment of women. However, the results need to be assessed with a high degree of caution because of several methodological limitations of the impact studies. These limitations have been illustrated and suggestions have made for more objective assessment of impact of past projects and for conducting additional research for supporting smallholder poultry as a tool for poverty alleviation

Stakeholder perspectives on breeding strategy and choice of breeds for livestock development in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, a science based systematically organized pragmatic breeding policy has never been formulated and adopted. In breeding research and development projects, perspectives of stakeholders like researchers, extension agents and farmers on criteria for selection of breeds for adaptation in the country have not been adequately considered. In this paper, opinions of a sample of 128 university teachers, researchers and extension experts in the field of livestock and 196 farmers with at least one milking cow on criteria for selection of breeds and their relative weights and a number of other breed development issues are presented. The results show that there are significant differences among experts about the breeding objectives and strategies to be followed, on relative weights to be given on various traits for evaluation and selection of breeds and allocation of research resources on different species for breed development. Moreover, there are significant differences between experts and farmers about relative weights to be given for breed evaluation and selection, and on the extent of suitability of different available breeds for local adaptation. These results indicate that breeding research and development needs to be based on more such studies to facilitate serious debate and arrive at a consensus for adoption of long-term breeding policy

Policy and scale factors influencing efficiency in dairy and poultry production in Bangladesh

Stochastic frontier functions were used to assess the impact of a set of policy and scale factors on the efficiency of broiler, layer and dairy farms in Bangladesh and their implications for poverty alleviation